I Am Dalek
by TheCosmicBanana
Summary: The Doctor discovers he is not alone when he finds a fellow Gallifreyan who has escaped from the Time War. Unfortunately, his only ally in a rising tide of massing evil is trapped in the shape of his worst enemy – a Dalek. Mild violence and mild swearing.
1. Prologue – Home

**Prologue**

 **Home**

* * *

This world, finally, was both habitable and uninhabited.

The planet circled closely to the sun-star of solar system 29-B8. The planet was so huge that it rivaled the sun – it was unclear which body orbited the other. It was like a patient predator, circling forever around its prey. The broad surface of the planet had a purply, shiny sheen – the color of an unsightly bruise. A poison in the air, called briothide, simmered in the heat of the nearby sun.

The planet was huge. It was unsightly. It was deadly.

But to a certain squadron of battle-beaten Daleks, this bruise of a planet was the definition of opportunity, a beacon of light in a black sky.

The squadron moved through space with quiet, demanding presence, three golden discs of ships gliding on toward the bruise hovering in space.

The ships descended onto the surface, each one glowing with a hot, golden heat as it passed through the membrane of thick atmosphere. With hissing steam rising off their surfaces, the ships landed on the ground.

Twenty-one armored shapes emerged from the ships, led by a single Dalek, stained gray by previous experience in warfare. The heaviest battle wound it carried was a shattered optic, a cold bright blue burning past white-cracked lines.

Its name glowed as a burnished, brassy symbol soldered to its front armor piece, nestled in the shallow dip between its gun-stick and sucker arm. It was the Greek symbol for Zeta – Ζ.

 _Zeta_. It was the sixth letter in the Greek alphabet, but the Dalek still ranked higher than Alpha, Beta, Delta, Epsilon, and Gamma because of its raw power alone.

Gliding silently, the Dalek leader led its squadron through the boggy swamps of the purple-tinted planet. Viewing the world through a shattered optic resulted in Zeta watching everything in multifaceted pictures, but it could still see well enough to judge the terrain around it. Head dome swiveling, Zeta's machine-methodical mind began mentally arranging the good aspects of the planet's terrain alongside the bad ones.

Soft and spongy mosses grew in, beside, and around swamps, of which there were many – there was more water than land here. Good. The waters, the atmosphere, the air itself, were all tinged with a taste of briothide – a chemical fatally poisonous to humans and almost all organisms, but livable for Daleks. Bad. But the possibility remained that Zeta's army could grow stronger if exposed to harsher conditions. The tree-like structures towering over every body of water were wide and tall, blocking the strongest of winds from the boggy surfaces of the ponds. Good.

This leader, Dalek Zeta – number six in the order of Greek alphabet, number one in command – glided slowly over the soggy terrain, its hover pad lighting the ground with a blue glow. Behind it followed its squadron – lacking slightly in number at twenty-one soldiers, instead of twenty-two – following dutifully in a triangular formation. Eyestalks swiveled around, searching the surface, some scanning the atmosphere with specialized tools in place of sucker arms. Every Dalek remained equipped with its gun-stick.

"Descend!" Zeta commanded, its hover pad decreasing its altitude. The soldiers behind it lowered to the ground. "Determine hazard level of any life forms," Zeta ordered. "Ex-terminate if they will not comply to the Da-leks' wishes!"

"I obey!" came the graveling of ten Dalek voices. They obediently branched off in search of inhabitants of the planet.

"Complete geographical scans!" Zeta turned to a different group of Daleks, the few who had specialized tools in replacement of sucker arms, and a few moments later Zeta was getting a full report of the geography of the planet.

"Report: surface temperature an even thirty degrees Celsius."

Another Dalek brandished a scanner, its eyestalk glued to the instrument to check the reading. Where a sucker arm attachment should have been was a glass-covered metal tube that glowed with pressure-sensitive orange fiber optics threaded into the glass. It made a _whoeeeeo-vreeeow_ sound that crackled as it hovered over the ground.

Completing its scan, the Dalek pulled back the tube and repeated the readings. "Atmospheric makeup sixty-seven percent nitrogen, twenty percent oxygen, twenty-three percent other. Mild traces of briothide detected. Habitable for Da-leks!"

 _Habitable_ – just the perfect word. Zeta rolled the idea around its mind with satisfaction.

The squadrons of Zeta branched off across the planet like golden ants, scouring the surface, demanding obedience from the life forms, exterminating when necessary.

Standing in the center of it all, Zeta lifted its cracked eyestalk. The sky was a pale sheen of purple, and the sun-star glowed hazily through the heavy atmosphere, tinted a steel gray.

"My new armada will soon scorch the skies!" Zeta growled, enjoying the words as they tinged out of its vocal processor. Enjoyment and pleasure were usually things that got in the way of other methodical thoughts and actions, but the Dalek allowed itself one rare moment to bask in its brilliance.

"The Bermuda ships are ready, Commander." Dalek Rho, Zeta's second-in-command, came up beside it.

"Ex-cellent!" The Dalek leader's earpieces lit up in hot, white flashes. "Project Independence shall commence and my armada will rise!"


	2. Predators and Prey

**Chapter: First**

 **Predators and Prey**

* * *

"Another successful crash landing," the Doctor remarked, shutting the TARDIS door behind him. The wooden noise echoed in the metal room. He turned on his heels and pocketed his hands, trench coat flowing out on both sides of his wrists. "You were doing so well for a stretch too! What happened?"

The TARDIS gave a pained groan, in a frequency far too low for human ears to detect, and a thin sheet of smoke curled up from the top.

"What's wrong, hey?" The Doctor gave the blue box a fond pat. "Sick? You don't have raccoons stuck in the rotary engines again, do you?"

The TARDIS didn't respond. The Doctor closed his mouth and sniffed once, giving it a careful look, but turned around to see where the time machine had deposited him.

A huge, metal expanse echoed around him. Dozens of metal machines, arranged in straight, strict rows and linked by long conveyor belts churned and chugged noisily, the industrial sound of production. The Doctor himself stood on a car-sized platform that was fenced in by yellow railings. A pair of stairs to his right led the rest of the way down to the factory, and directly in front of him stood a gleaming, silver automaton.

The female robot stood perky and ready to attention, silver digits clasped into one attentive fist in front of her. Her jewel-magenta optics lit from behind when the movement-sensing pad embedded in her forehead noticed the Doctor's movement. A white bulb illuminated inside and lit up a curved white smile on her faceplate.

"Welcome to Stratis – the factory without fault!" the automaton announced brightly. "I am Stig, your tour guide to the Stratis factory. Please refrain from asking questions until the end of the tour. If you would like additional inf–"

"I'll take the unguided tour, thanks," the Doctor murmured, pulling a silver-blue cylinder from his suit and sonicking the robot. The automaton made a slurred winding noise as it powered down again, head lowering, smile de-illuminating.

Re-pocketing the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor grabbed the yellow handrails of the stairs and swung his body over the stairs, touching down on the second platform that led further down into the factory.

He realized that the factory was run entirely by automatons, all in a similar model to Stig. Thousands of the robots clustered around the conveyor belts and worked with rapid, silver digits on the pieces on the conveyor belt.

Curious, the Doctor stepped up beside one of the workers to try to get a glimpse of what it was the automaton was working on, but the only thing he saw on the conveyor belt was _movement_. Quick and silver and shiny pieces moved, in a repetitive movement, again and again, until he grew dizzy.

"All right, why am I here?" the Doctor called out, stepping away from looking around the room with just his eyes. "Whoever, whatever you are, come on out. Show yourself."

Nothing.

"Come on, come on!' he shouted again, slapping the flat of his palm against the nearest metal machine. "You redirected my ship here somehow. I'm looking to find out how and why."

After a moment of – well, hardly _silence_ , in a factory of this size – but after a moment, a shadow detached itself from one of the machines and slid forward.

Through the darkness a circle of blue light was trained on the Doctor, and two ear-like appendages stuck out from the domed-headed silhouette. With a hesitant air, a Dalek rattled forward, its beaten shape melting out of the shadow.

This Dalek was battle-beaten, its armor scuffed and gray, covered with dented spheres and a sucker arm that hung at a crooked angle. The deadly black rubber grip of the sucker arm had actually melted into a lumpy half-circle. The only shiny thing still remaining on its armor was a small brassy symbol, soldered onto its front shoulder piece in between its sucker arm and gun stick; the Greek letter for G – Γ.

"And there we are. Should have known." The Doctor stepped back, eyes steely. He spoke up to the Dalek, making his voice heard over the whining, whirring automatons. "You're the one who redirected my ship, am I right? I know it was a redirection – my TARDIS is in perfect working order. Well, for right now, anyway. Some sort of magnetic pull. Not a temporal magnet – which makes sense, because that technology won't exist for another thousand years – but still, a _powerful_ magnet. It'd have to be the size of a small moon. I was well on my way to the twentieth century, you know. I was all ready to find out what was the big secret behind the Bermuda Triangle. Been bugging me for years, really."

As he spoke, the Dalek continually moved closer, not saying anything, hardly moving at all except for its steady sliding forward motion.

"Here's what I want to know – why the year 3012?" The Doctor took a step backwards. "This is not a pleasant year for this planet, I remember. Earth is rubbish. A dustbin."

The Dalek continued sliding forward.

The Doctor was beginning to feel uneasy – naturally, in the face of a silent and slowly-advancing Dalek – until he noticed that the Dalek was trembling.

"Are you all right?" he asked, eyebrows knitting together in puzzlement rather than concern.

This could mean one of two things – it was either trembling in pent-up anger (bad thing), or it was scared (much less likely).

It slowed its forward movement a few feet away from the Doctor, pausing as if hesitant. Its eyestalk quivered slightly as it looked the Doctor up and down, but finally its earpieces flashed and it spoke, with tentative pauses between each word.

"Can you help me, Doc-tor?"

The Doctor blinked, and closed his mouth. "All right, gonna be honest, that was not what I was expecting."

"The re-quest remains the same."

The Doctor crossed his arms. "Well, certainly. How may I help you today, sir?"

"Sarcasm detected," the Dalek said, with an ironically equal amount of sarcasm.

"Ever heard of 'conflict of interest'?" the Doctor asked, leaning forward on his heels. "What could _I_ help you with? Global destruction? Not really my thing – I'm better at stopping it."

The Dalek was quiet for a minute, but then continued, "Protection. The Doc-tor is merciful. You could not turn away a plea of help from one so helpless."

"I could, I would, and I will," the Doctor said, pocketing his hands and beginning to turn away. "You're hardly helpless, anyhow. What does a Dalek have to fear? Besides me, of course."

"I am being hunted by my own squadron."

"Serve you right." The Doctor paused and looked the Dalek up and down, carefully. Then, because of darned curiosity, "What for?"

"I – I am different."

"What do you mean, 'different'? There's nothing different about Daleks," the Doctor said with a tinge of disgust in his voice. "You're all the same gob of evil cowering inside that metal casing. We open that up, and you're the same parasitic slime as any other one of your kind!"

At that moment everything stopped. All the noise of the factory was suddenly cut off, and the momentum-powered echo stretched into the silence.

The Doctor licked his lips and looked around, aware of the powerful echo his voice had left in the sudden silence.

The Dalek, as well, had its eyestalk lifted upward.

There was a brief silence.

The Dalek, ignoring the odd happenstance, turned its attention back to the Doctor, its head dome making a whirring sound.

Its earpieces lit up to speak when a shattering explosion suddenly rattled the floor, sending hisses of painful steam from the machines. The Doctor slammed up against one of the machine belts and cried out as his arm twisted.

"Earthquake?" He looked around. Everything was trembling, unsure all of a sudden of its position. Sheets of dust hissed down from the conveyor belts attached to the ceiling. "Yep, that was definitely an earthquake." He frowned, and re-checked his mental calender. _3012... there were no earthquakes in 3012..._

"I am not." The Dalek's grating voice, echoey in its metal casing, was quiet.

"What?" Pulling himself from the conveyor belt, the Doctor gingerly grabbed his arm and squinted at the Dalek.

"I am not Da-lek."

The earth had settled again, but with the uneasy feeling of turmoil underground. The Doctor looked around, waiting for the next wave to hit.

"That was a big hit," he muttered to himself. The ground rolled again, and he stumbled for his footing. "Seems like... a level 5." Another punch hit the floor from below, and the Doctor fell with a pained cry, scraping his hands on the floor. He winced. "And make that a level 7 incoming."

Another light punch, almost like an air pocket, popped beneath the ground. The entire factory groaned.

The Doctor leapt up from the floor, stung with realization almost as though the ground had zapped him. "It's pocketing!" he said in sudden shock.

"Ex-plain!" The Dalek had toppled as well, and it had alighted into a blue-lighted hover.

"Pocketing," the Doctor hissed, starting to pace wildly back and forth. "It's the worst form of an earthquake. The ground sends up hiccups, little air pockets, through all the levels of the ground." He flipped out his sonic and frowned at the buzzing blue light as it read the environment. "Never happens with natural earthquakes, though. It's always been associated with man-made explosions."

He shook his head to one side. He didn't know what was happening, but he could easily find out. He spun around to dart back to the TARDIS.

To his surprise, the Dalek followed alongside him as he raced back toward the stairs leading up to the platform. The Dalek positioned itself squarely in front of the Doctor, blocking off his movement. The Doctor skidded to a stop, startled, then angry.

"Earth will recover," the Dalek said, as if trying to brush the matter aside. "Doctor–"

"Get out of my way," the Doctor said quietly, raising his eyebrows.

The glow of the optic burned a bright, bright blue. "I require your help!"

"And I don't want to help you," the Doctor said. "Have we got that straight now?"

He stepped again to get around to the TARDIS, but the Dalek lunged sideways and blocked his way again. The Doctor's fists clenched. "This world could be falling apart at the seams and I plan on finding out what's happening. _Get out of my way!_ "

"I will not."

"You wouldn't know," he snapped, ducking around the other side of the Dalek. He lunged up onto the first platform of the stairs, gripping the rail tightly. "You couldn't know what it's like to lose a home planet so beautiful."

"YES!" the Dalek suddenly shrieked, whirling around, its cautious air shattering indignantly. "I do know what horrors the Da-leks have wrought on every planet. On OUR planet, Doctor."

The Doctor's hand released the railing, and he turned around slowly. "What are you talking about?"

"I am not what you accuse me of being!" the Dalek shrieked. "I am like you."

"What do you _mean_?" the Doctor asked again, this time more quietly and more intensely.

The Dalek's casing clicked, and its neck and mid-body armor split into four sections. Steam hissed from every crack as the four metal pieces slid away, throwing light into the interior of the Dalek.

When the pieces of armor slid completely away, the Doctor's eyes widened in shock. He barely heard his own mouth mumble a disbelieving 'No.'

Even when hooked up to wires and cables connecting to a Dalek casing, the brain of a Time Lord, nestled above two beating hearts, was difficult to mistake.

The Face of Boe's words scorched the Doctor's mind, disturbing in their sudden clarity:

" _Know this, Time Lord: You are not alone."_

* * *

 ** _Eee! It's really here! My story is finally getting out there in the big bad world! :D_**

 ** _[[Disclaimer: This story was created after_ Gridlock _but before_ Utopia/Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords _. I didn't even know who the Master was when creating this story. So, just to disprove any early theories, the main Dalek is NOT the Master. Any other additional things that were eventually wrapped up in the show I didn't know about at the time either. So please forgive my break away from canon. :)]]_**


	3. Run

**Chapter: Second**

 **Run  
**

* * *

"No. No no no no nononono." The Doctor backed away, his eyes glued to the pulsing purple brain but his mind denying what his eyes saw. His hands jarred against the yellow railing of the platform behind him, but he hardly felt it.

The Dalek's earpieces lit up and spoke the exact words the Doctor didn't want to register. "I am a Time Lord."

"No!" The Doctor's voice brittled, and he lunged forward, toward the Dalek. "This is a cheap trick, nothing more."

The Dalek wheeled away a few paces, as if shocked. "The Doctor – dis-believes me?"

"The Time Lords are dead. I know. I killed them," the Doctor said darkly. "None survived. This is a clever trick of the Daleks, I'm guessing? You're the bait and I'm the dupe. Well, _it won't work_."

The Dalek said nothing as it stared straight at the Doctor. A quiver shuttered through its entire armor, and it repeated, "I am your kin."

"How?" The Doctor felt his lip curl. "How can you be a Time Lord if you're a _Dalek_."

"I was a sol-dier in the Time War," the Dalek explained quickly, its earpieces flashing spasmodically. "The final battle. We were desperate. The armor of a fallen Da-lek was found and a. . . willing sol-dier stepped forward to bond himself to it."

"Never," the Doctor said instantly, shaking his head. "Among their worse sins, the Time Lords were proud to a fault. They would never bond themselves to the armor of a Dalek."

"War," the Dalek said, "will drive the wisest to insanity."

The Doctor processed this. Beneath his fingers, the railing of the stairs continued to tremble. The ground was still unsteady, and the factory rattled out a nervous rhythm on every surface. The four-pound rhythm of the Dalek's two hearts beat in time.

"Why'd you volunteer, then?" the Doctor asked, nodding at the Dalek. "I don't imagine that many Time Lords were eager to step into a Dalek's skin."

Gamma's casing hissed again, and the four plates pulled back to the rest of its armor, concealing the brain and the beating hearts in clouds of steam.

"I had nothing left worth liv-ing for."

Slowly the Doctor's scowl faded. "How do you mean?" he asked.

The Dalek stared straight ahead, and when it spoke, the words came between clipped spaces. "Does the Doc-tor now accept my plea?"

At that moment, everything stopped again. Every nervous rhythm that the machinery had been rattling out stopped, and there was a very, very brief second of ultimate silence. This was the exact moment that the Doctor had been trying to avoid.

"Here we go," the Doctor said, every muscle tensing. "Wave number two–!"

He was cut off as the second rolling wave of the pocketing earthquake hit, creating a thunderclap of noise that slammed against the walls like a physical force. Machinery tore open with a bellowing hiss, and the conveyor belts running along the ceiling snapped away from their tracks like rubber snakes.

The Doctor hunched over the yellow railing like it was a lifeline. As rubble showered onto his hair, he twisted around to look at the Dalek.

Even as the factory around them was tearing itself apart, this Dalek didn't move, its eyestalk staying solidly pointed toward the Doctor. The circular glow burned desperately.

The Doctor hesitated as he stared into Gamma's optic. There was a first for everything, he supposed. And a Dalek voluntarily begging for help was definitely new.

The factory pulsed, bellowed, and groaned, reminding the Doctor he had mere seconds left to choose. He glanced up at his TARDIS, then back to the Dalek – the _Time Lord?_ – and shook his head. "Whoever, whatever you are, we're about to die," he said. "My TARDIS can get us out of here safely. Run!" He started to bolt up the stairs, then shot a painful look at the Dalek. "Or hover, or fly, or – do whatever Daleks do. Just – _quickly_!"

It lighted into a hover immediately. "Elevate!"

The Doctor charged up the short number of stairs as the Dalek flew over them, past the frozen, smiling automaton of Stig. The Doctor unlocked the door and pushed himself inside, making a mighty leap as the floor started to crumble. Whirling around, he popped open the other door, giving the Dalek enough room to hover through into the TARDIS.

As the earthquake ripped through the metal factory, chunks of metal the size of cars slammed down around the blue wooden box as it dematerialized with a churning groan.

* * *

In a point in space, hovering just above planet earth's atmosphere, the same blue wooden box reappeared. Both its doors opened, casting warm yellow light into the vacuum of space. The Doctor and Gamma stood in the brightness, silhouetted, looking down at the writhing surface of Earth below them.

The surface was a dusty tan, the color of debris. Earthquakes split the surface, some large enough to be seen from space. The tiniest of cracks splintered the land masses, seemingly so insignificant from up here.

"Blimey," the Doctor murmured to himself. "That's greater than a level 7. It's _global_."

Gamma surveyed the debris cloud that hung over the planet, the sore-eyed sun, the pained cracks splitting the earth. "The Doc-tor can do nothing?"

"Not anymore." The Doctor pushed his hands into his pockets. "This is now a fixed point. If I went back to stop it from pocketing, it would create a paradox. I can't change it."

The Dalek hesitated. "Does life still remain?"

"Life always remains. Humans'll always pick themselves up and brush themselves off no matter how bad the disaster. You saw the factory," the Doctor said, turning to the Dalek. "That was fairly new, all shiny, well oiled." He frowned. "You were hiding out there – you never once saw a human?"

"I was jumping throughout time and space," Gamma responded, "evading my squadron. My time device short-circuited." Gamma looked back down at the earth. "I hid. Waiting to be found and ex-terminated."

The Doctor was considering the response. He opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by an alien sound.

It was alien, yes, but it was also so familiar that it froze his spine. What was alien was that he _shouldn't_ be hearing it. It was the sound of the TARDIS, its time-ancient machinery wheezing. The TARDIS was dematerializing.

He whirled around to look at the console, but as the center column pumped up and down, he realized dizzily that the inside of the TARDIS was starting to fade. He could see the stars and galaxies surrounding them every time it flashed out of existence.

The nightmare deepened as the surface of the TARDIS floor began to vanish from underneath his paralyzed feet. Thousands of miles away, thousands miles down, he saw the blackness of space far below his trainers. Nothing holding him between.

The TARDIS was teleporting.

But it was leaving its passengers behind.


	4. Purely Experimental

**Chapter: Third**

 **Purely Experimental**

* * *

The Doctor sprung away from the vanishing floor and skipped over the steps leading to the console. He touched lightly to the floor and raced around the console, checking the levers, the switches, the multitude of buttons. Everything was in order – nothing had been accidently flipped, pressed, activated, or spun.

"What are you doing what are you doing?" he asked the TARDIS, rapid-fire. "What's happening?"

A message flashed on the monitor, catching the Doctor's eye. He yanked it around to face him.

The central column of the TARDIS stopped pumping. The golden walls surrounding the Doctor solidified into reality – it hadn't teleported anywhere without them, thank Gallifrey.

However, the Doctor's twin hearts didn't stop racing as he stared in shock at the monitor. On the screen were white pixels against blue pixels, arranged into words. Numbers and letters – coordinates and explanations. Simple. It should have been simple.

But it was written in _Gallifreyan_.

Reeling from shock, the Doctor read the words.

 _[[The TARDIS is undamaged. I cannot move her – I just needed your attention and your trust.]]_

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. Sending a massage to the TARDIS was no easy task – it didn't exactly work like a simple electronic mailing system.

 _[[Regrettably, I cannot tell you much. Follow these coordinates, and it will become clearer.]]_

Below the circular text was a short row of hexagonal shapes and circles – coordinates that were perfectly suited to the TARDIS's engines.

The Doctor glanced up. Gamma had closed the doors after it with its sucker arm and hadn't moved since. As the Doctor looked at it, the Dalek began to lift into a hover.

From the instant of fear, the Doctor's doubts had slammed back into his mind. What had he been thinking, allowing a Dalek onto the TARDIS?

"You," the Doctor growled, pointing directly at the Dalek, "don't move. I don't know what's happening, but I'm going to find out. If you sabotaged my TARDIS, somehow, I'll –" He sucked in his breath, cutting off the threat.

The Dalek settled back down to the floor without another word.

The Doctor moved stiffly around the console, setting the TARDIS to the coordinates the monitor indicated.

"You intend to obey?" Gamma asked, quietly, from the doorway.

"There is no force in this universe that is powerful enough to control the _inside_ of a TARDIS from the _outside_ ," the Doctor said with conviction. "Not even anything of Dalek make. If following these coordinates will show me what's going on, I intend to find out."

The Dalek's eyestalk nodded.

Without moving his eyes off the Dalek, the Doctor pulled down the temporal inverter. The center column began churning, once more functioning normally. Whoever or whatever had sent the message, they were true to their word. As the Doctor leaned against the railing, he continued to study the Dalek out of the corner of his eye.

He wanted to believe Gamma's story and rejoice over the fact that he had met a surviving Time Lord. He honestly, truly did, with an ache in his hearts that reminded him every day that he was a lone survivor. But for a _Dalek_ to claim such things stopped his trust short. It was a ruse. It was a trap – it _had_ to be. Years of betrayal and heartache had left his skin thicker than he had thought.

It was going to be a long 10-second trip.

* * *

The TARDIS settled.

From the console, the Doctor glanced up. Gamma still hadn't moved, but it was looking over at the Doctor through a bright, clear optic.

"Suppose I shouldn't let you out of my sight," the Doctor muttered, almost to himself. Shaking his head as if he couldn't believe what he was doing, he stepped forward off the platform of the console. "I suppose you'll have to come with me, but _no wandering off_." He held up a finger, pointing it at the Dalek.

"I obey."

There was a silence. The Doctor nodded, slightly, and cleared his throat. "Right, then. _Allons-y._ " He scooped up his trench coat from the railing of the console and pulled it onto his shoulders.

"We're not on earth," he said as he walked toward the doors. "We're on Ixxa, the one tiny little dusty planet that everyone forgot about. It's uninhabitable – the air is unbreathable for humans but manageable for Time Lords..." The Doctor threw a glance at Gamma. "Or Daleks."

The Dalek kept silent.

The world outside gleamed a bright, clean white – a stark contrast to the dusty orange surface the Doctor had been expecting. As he stepped out, a mixture of pungent smells hit his nose – moist, earthy dirt; pressurized oxygen; and the pungent smell of living, breathing animals.

"Well..." Startled by the advancement and complexity of the building, the Doctor looked around at the smooth, bright walls. "Uninhabitable... it _used_ to be."

Gamma exited the TARDIS, and the Doctor pulled the doors shut.

"Right. Breathable air." The Doctor took a deep sniff. "Unlike Ixxa. Damp air –" another deep sniff – "unlike Ixxa, and finally, _what_ is that smell?" The Doctor turned in a circle trying to locate the source, a wrinkled expression on his face.

"An early attempt at civilization?" Gamma suggested, having no nose to process the scents.

The Doctor glanced away from the Dalek, unwilling to believe it yet. "Let's find out."

The short hall was one-way – there was only one set of double doors facing them at the end of it. Stepping up to the sleek black doors, the Doctor pushed them both open. There, the smell intensified in a wave of humidity.

"Wow," the Doctor said, a huge grin of genuine delight coming upon his face. "Now, _that_. That is what I call a mad scientist's lab. It's scary and everything, yeah, but still. The genuine article, right there."

The room was long, narrow, and dark, but well-kept. Empty examination tables split the room into two halves. On one side there were more tables containing bubbling mixtures and steaming beakers, all glowing with extraordinary colors. Bright orange liquid slid through coils of glass, passing in between two beakers. On the adjacent wall, rows on rows of cages were packed tightly together. Each cage was dark inside.

Gamma remained silent as they entered the room fully. Inside, the room was cool and dark. Things croaked in the near distance, LED lighting hummed, and water trickled in a solid stream nearby. The air sweated with humidity that smelled slimy.

"Let's see what we've got here, eh?" The Doctor strode over to the cages. He flipped his sonic screwdriver out of his suit pocket and hovered the blue tip over the switch panel on the wall.

Blue-tinted lighting lit up the first cage. Startled by the sudden brightness, the thing inside the cage skittered to a corner, turning up leaf litter with its webbed fingers.

"How about that." The Doctor leaned in for a closer look. The salamander-looking lizard inside turned and blinked sleepily back at him. The Doctor grinned a little. "Hello."

After a short humming noise, the other lights on all the cages blinked on. More little wet things inside the cages stirred at the unexpected light.

The Doctor heard a whirring noise, and he felt the solid cold presence of Gamma slide up beside him. Glancing to the side, he studied the Dalek as it reviewed the tanks of animals. He didn't expect it to say anything, to regard these lizards as alive. They were, after all, only experiments.

"They are missing their tails," Gamma said.

The Doctor frowned as his eyes flicked from one cage to the next. At least half of the lizards had short stumps for tails, nothing else. "That they are," he muttered. There were small white tags hanging from each lock. He flipped one over and read the small, neat writing. _Test No. 106. Tail removed 13.00. Injected with 1mL Termical at 13.00. Time Stamp: 01/05/3012._

"Termical," the Doctor whispered the unfamiliar drug name. His brow wrinkled. " _Termical_."

"Doctor." Gamma's grating voice brought the Doctor out of his thoughts.

Suddenly ice-cold aware that he had allowed a Dalek out of his peripheral vision, the Doctor snapped his gaze upward.

Gamma, using his sucker arm, was pushing aside a black curtain at the back of the room. The Doctor frowned and dropped the tag, straightening up.

"Curtains?" He strode up beside the Dalek and touched the thick fabric. "Brilliant! Curtain-walls." He pushed the other curtain aside. "What are they trying to hide?"

The cut-off section behind the curtains glowed an eerie yellow. The Doctor stepped through, letting the curtain fall behind him, and stared openmouthed at what he saw.

Four enormous tanks illuminated the small space with painful brightness. The tanks were rounded, unlike the others before, and much larger – roughly the width of a telephone box, and they reached from floor to ceiling. These tanks were filled to the brim with bright yellow liquid that bubbled slightly.

Gamma completely stopped in the center of the room. The Doctor stepped closer and placed a hand on the curved glass.

Twisted up in the warm yellow liquid was a human-sized body. The Doctor squinted closer, looking through the tiny rising bubbles.

The humanoid had two large pieces of skin stretching from the top of its head down to its shoulders, much like the opened hood of a cobra. The thick skin was supported by rib-like projections coming from the humanoid's head and neck. It had the face of a snake, with scaled skin and lips that were pulled into a wave of a constant smile. There was a small, triangular gap in its lips where two tips of a forked tongue poked through. Its perfectly rounded eyes were closed, covered with thickly scaled eyelids.

 _Shezniks_. The name sent shivers across his skin. _These are Shezniks_. He stepped back from the tank, eyes widening.

His elbow knocked into Gamma, who stood behind him. He whirled around to see the Dalek standing there, its eyestalk pointed upward. Its coppery armor was tinted an ill yellow from the light.

"Old enemy," the Doctor muttered as explanation. He didn't feel like discussing details.

"Shez-niks," the Dalek replied softly, in a grating metal whisper.

The Doctor gave Gamma a double-take. "What did you say?"

"Shezniks," Gamma repeated.

The Doctor turned around, his hands pocketed. "How do you know about the Shezniks?" His voice was low. "They were an enemy of mine but mine alone. As far as I knew no one else knew about their presence on earth."

The Dalek's eyestalk was lowering to the floor in deep thought. "A. . . distant memory. I had forgotten. Until now."

The Doctor leaned closer. "How distant of a memory?"

"I am. . . unsure."

The Doctor studied Gamma's optic carefully. There was a long stretch of silence. Finally, he gritted his teeth against his own conscience and opened his mouth. "Are you a Gallifreyan, Gamma?" he asked, his voice low. "I mean, _really_ , a Time Lord trapped in a Dalek body?"

Gamma turned to him and bobbed its eyestalk up and down in a nod.

The Doctor pulled his hands from his pockets and stepped forward, equally slowly. "If you are a Time Lord. . ." He knelt, facing the Dalek. "I'll be able to tell. Will you let me look inside your mind?"

Brief moment of silence. Then, "Yes."

The Doctor lifted his hands and gingerly placed them on either side of the Dalek's head dome, just beneath Gamma's lightbulb-earpieces. His hands formed V-shapes – a Vulcan salute.

The bright yellow light gleaming from the Sheznik tanks hardened their silhouettes to stark outlines as the Doctor closed his eyes and allowed himself in, into another being's mind, and began to walk through the memories.

* * *

 _Dusty gray, streaming liquid red, gleaming black metal, hot white embers – the colors of warfare stream into view. The images are blurred through the fog of memory._

 _The screams of soldiers on the battlefield die away inside a curved, gentle red lab. It is quiet here._

 _The shell of a Dalek, burned black by warfare and branded with a golden Greek symbol, stands in the corner beside the surgery bed –_ my new body.

 _Chill of fear. Great reluctance, inside, a gray burden weighing on the patient's heart._

 _The surgery bed is cold and slick with antiseptic._

" _Ready?" The surgeon's tools clatter together on the sterile table, punctuate the question._

No. No, I'm not ready. _The fear is strong, but so is the patient's voice. "Ready."_

 _Sweet, syrupy sedative slips through a thin IV and into the patient's bloodstream. Blackened by sleep, the patient sits back. Silver knives cut through skin while metal machinery screams against bone._

 _A swirling, black eternity passes. Finally, the patient wakens, uncomfortable in a new body._

What. . . what day. What time is it. _The thoughts are bleary._ The war. . . the war's still going on. Gotta take up arms. . . gotta keep fighting. . . . _Only exhaustion keeps the patient from moving around._

 _Sight becomes predominant. Everything is warped in a blue bubble – the Gallifreyan faces in front twist and warp as they move. The patient stares. Their mouths are moving, but it's as if they are speaking through a tube. The noise echoes blearily around, and very slowly clears._

" _Survived. . . still a miracle he_ survived _. . . ."_

" _Vitals are stable."_

" _He's becoming conscious."_

" _Commander, maybe you should speak to him."_

" _Mighty warrior," comes Commander Salkoth's voice, then his face, "you have overcome one great obstacle. I will help you through the next."_

 _The patient – this_ Dalek _– remains silent. Commander Salkoth is –_ used to be? _– a familiar face, but through the blue glass, he looks like a stranger._

 _No. . ._

 _Not a stranger._

 _He looks like a_ target _._

 _The throat wobbles, chokes, struggles to push past the heavy gunk holding it down._

" _He's trying to speak." The nurse leans forward and adjusts something on the patient's new body – an unfamiliar mechanical part. The patient's vocal processor clears._

 _The patient's first word as a Dalek gurgles out of its vocal tubes:_

"Ex-terminate. . . ."

 _Imagery pulses across the memory faster now, a dizzying montage of images. White energy. Black skeletons, necks thrown back, screaming in agony. Red fire. Hot fire. Confusion. Daleks. Glints of dark gold. More skeletons. Thousands._ Thousands _. There are so many bodies. . . ._

* * *

Gamma yanked suddenly away from the Doctor. The connection was broken, a fractured snap mid-connection.

Slammed suddenly back to reality, the Doctor's eyes flicked open, and he lowered his arms. "Gamma?"

The Time Lord's head dome was turned completely away from the Doctor, distressed at reliving the memories in such painful detail. His eyestalk was lowered to the ground. "The medics assumed my mind would be powerful enough to overcome the Da-lek instincts after the procedure."

The Doctor, keeping his eyes trained on Gamma, walked slowly forward.

Gamma quivered. "The corpse of the true Gamma was still too fresh. Our minds bonded. I ex-terminated them. . . ."

The Doctor knelt beside the Gallifreyan.

"My squadron has been hunting me ever since." Gamma's eyestalk remained fixed on the ground, casting a blue circle of light on the floor.

Gamma gave a sudden, violent tremble. "What have I become?" he shrieked. "What has driven me so far from my world of beauty and honor to become THIS?"

"Gamma," the Doctor spoke softly.

Gamma's head dome swiveled around to look at the Doctor. The Doctor stared back, into the glowing blue eyestalk of his greatest ally, trapped in the body of his worst enemy.

"You made a mistake," the Doctor said. "But you're here, now, and we've both survived hell. We're the last two left.

"What'd you say, then. Allies?" The Doctor held out his hand for Gamma to shake.

Gamma stared at the outstretched palm for a moment, then his earpieces lit up with an affirmative white flash. "Allies!"

The Gallifreyan extended his sucker arm, the other Gallifreyan grasped it, and they shook.

* * *

 **A/N: Whoo! Some plot's moving along here! :D Thanks so much to everyone who has either followed this story, favorited it, or written a review – it's all hugely appreciated!**

 **Anyway, I just wanted to put this in – the Shezniks are an alien race of my own creation. I made them up. So is Commander Salkoth – he's just a random Time Lord I created. X) Thanks again for reading!**


	5. Deep Breath In

**Chapter: Fourth**

 **Deep Breath In...**

* * *

In the silence of the lab behind the Doctor and Gamma, someone gasped.

The Doctor jumped and spun around.

Standing in a doorway that had been hidden previously by the curtain-wall stood a young woman. She looked no older than eighteen, and her light grey eyes were wide with surprise. Her sleek brown hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail that brushed the shoulder of her lab coat. In her latex-gloved right hand, she gripped a vial of dark green liquid.

"You're back," was the first thing she said. Her voice was thin, her face shocked.

The Doctor glanced at Gamma, then back to the new arrival. " _Well_ – first time here, actually."

"I mean, for you, yes, but I didn't think it would be –" She stopped herself, took a breath, and readjusted her grip on the vial of liquid in her hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't think." Her voice was, surprisingly, British.

"You," the Doctor said, recovering from the mutual surprise. He straightened up. "Are you the biologist on this base?"

"Yes," she said, blinking involuntarily. She licked her lips and added, "Well, the only person here."

The Doctor stopped what he was going to say and looked at her again. "Not _the_ only."

She nodded with a swallow. Turning around, she tapped a code into a panel beside the doorway. A metal door slid silently across the entrance and clicked softly, sealing off the way she had come. Readjusting her grip on the vial she held in her hand, she edged over to one of the tanks containing the Shezniks.

"The serum is a-almost ready," she said, trying to steady her shaking hands. "This is the final batch. I'm almost certain it's ready. I was just going to test it out now."

The Doctor glanced at Gamma. Putting his hands in his pockets, he walked up to the girl. "What sort of serum would that be?"

"Um –" she glanced at the Doctor through wide eyes, then back to Gamma. "Are you allowed to ask questions?"

The Doctor paused. "I should hope so," he said, his brow wrinkling. "Why not?"

She stared at him. Startled by the question, her lips moved, but no sound came out. "How," she tried finally, "did you get here?"

"Teleport. Good old-fashioned TARDIS, Mark 47. Just through the hallway out there." The Doctor gestured behind them.

"You came here in a. . ." Her hands brushed her mouth. "Wait. Not by an escort? Who's. . . who's the Dalek?"

The Doctor turned around. "Oh, right, sorry. This is Gamma. He's not exactly a Dalek – bit of a long story. He won't hurt you, I can promise you that."

"Not a Dalek?" she repeated. Her head shook slightly from side to side. "No, but it is. Isn't it from the Greek squadron?" She pointed to the golden symbol on Gamma's armor.

"He's really not," the Doctor insisted quietly. "He's a sheep in wolf's clothing – scary outside but innocent within."

"Wait – you're it?" she whispered at Gamma, stepping closer. "You're the Rogue One? The traitor?"

"What are these titles?" the Dalek shrieked. "I be-trayed no one!"

She flinched as Gamma spoke for the first time. "That's – that's what the others called you."

"Oth-ers?"

"Gamma, it's okay," the Doctor said, raising both hands in a peaceful gesture. "Okay. How about let's try that again," the Doctor said, giving the girl a smile. "What's your name?"

"Oh, right. Um, Taryn Roberts," she offered quickly, extending her left hand to shake. Her right still held onto the vial.

The Doctor stepped forward and awkwardly took it with his own left hand. Hers was cold and clammy with nervous sweat. "The Doctor," he said, offering a quick smile. "And his name is Gamma."

"Gamma?" After a few long moments, she nodded as well. "Okay. Just. . .could he stay where he is?"

The Doctor looked at Gamma. The Dalek/Time Lord nodded agreement, choosing not to speak.

"Um, thanks." She turned around to face the Sheznik tank.

The glass tank was set upon a hip-high metal base. On the base were access ports and screens showing the Sheznik's biological readings. Thick rubber cords hanging down from the ceiling were plugged into the wider access ports, continuously feeding more liquid into the tank. The snakelike animal inside this tank was one of the two who were missing their tails. The tail had been cut neatly off at the base of the Sheznik's spine, leaving a healing, bloody stump.

"You've met Daleks before, then?" the Doctor asked in interest.

"'Met,'" she echoed with a strained smile. "Yeah, something like that." She left her answer at that and focused her attention on the Sheznik tank.

Several smaller ports were lined up beside the wider ones. Several glass vials were plugged into two of them already, but they had both been drained empty. Taryn removed the two empty vials from the tank and put them carefully in her lab coat's pocket. Leaning over, she typed into a small keypad beside the main screen to record the removal. She inserted the vial in her hand into an empty port, then swiveled a watch on her wrist to check the time.

The liquid in the vial slowly emptied, and green began to billow into the yellow of the tank.

"Mind if I ask what's in that vial, Taryn?" the Doctor asked, stepping closer. He slipped his thick glasses on his face and inspected the green liquid swirling around the floating Sheznik.

"Termical," she said. She kept her eyes on the tank, carefully observing the Sheznik inside. "It's, um." She glanced sideways at the Doctor. "A serum of my own creation."

"And mind if I ask what's in that serum?"

"Stuff. It's – complicated. I wouldn't want to want to bore you."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I'm quite interested in _stuff_. Stuff is interesting. It seems like you like stuff, too, judging by all the beakers and things. Nice lab, by the way," he said, tilting his head to indicate the lab behind him.

"Oh, thanks." She gave a hollow laugh. "Wish I could claim it as my own."

The green liquid dispersed completely and disappeared.

"If not yours –" Keeping his head facing the tank, the Doctor's eyes slid over to her face. "Who built it? Bit hard to just stumble across a fully-built oxygenated base like this."

For a while, Taryn said nothing. Beneath her cheek, he could see her jaw clenching and unclenching. She seemed to be debating how much to tell him, and he didn't like that – lies could be building with every second.

"Taryn?" he prompted carefully.

"Doctor," she said finally. Her eyes were closed. "One year ago, I was a student at the Arcon University, on Saturn. I was called a prodigy – had the top marks, set all the high scores. I had access to labs, so for my final project I started working on something that I had wanted to do ever since I was nine. I was honestly just doing what I loved."

She swallowed.

"My project was almost finished when the Daleks came for me."

Gamma stirred noticeably at the statement.

"They took me from my lab. I was up late – early, rather, I suppose – making adjustments on my serum, the final changes before my project was revealed. I was so, _so_ close to revealing this to the world. Then they came. They broke down the door, and just. . .surrounded me. All this gold and blue and. . .oh, God, the _silver_. Their weapons." Taryn stared away, lost in the memory. "They pushed me into their ship. I was forced into a little black cell, no light. There were these vents on every of the cell, and before we took off there was this blueish gas that came through. It filled up the cell, and I passed out. When I woke up, I was here. Uh. . .to be honest, I still don't know where I am. This place has no windows."

"Ixxa," the Doctor supplied quickly. "Different solar system."

Her brow wrinkled. "Ixxa? I don't think I've ever heard –"

"Exactly," the Doctor said with a wan smile. "The Daleks needed to put you somewhere that had vanished from history's memory. No one would think to come looking here."

She nodded. "Okay. Thank you. When I was awake, the Daleks told me to continue working on my serum – everything had been provided" – she gestured around to the lab – "I just had to work alone and in secret. And _quickly_. They said. . ." She took in a breath. "I was on a limited oxygen supply." Taryn gave a false smile to the Doctor. "And it was up to my own discretion if I wanted to live or not."

"How long do you have?" the Doctor asked, concerned.

She gave a little laugh. "Like they'd tell me. Probably 'til infinity. But until then I _just don't know_. So I work fast without question."

"That's why you thought Gamma was coming to tell you your time was up," the Doctor realized.

"Was it my squadron?" Gamma asked suddenly, rattling forward.

Startled by the advance, Taryn skidded backward. Her shoulders knocked against the edge of the Sheznik tank, causing her to gasp in surprise. "Sorry," she whispered, trying to breathe a laugh. "Sorry. Not used to the idea of a _nice_ Dalek yet."

"I a-pologize."

"No, no, it's – you're okay. I'm sorry. Just – please don't come any closer." Taryn didn't move, her shoulders pressed against the glass tank and her hands gripping it.

The Dalek nodded its eyestalk and retreated slightly.

Taryn kept a wary eye on it as she turned her head back to the Doctor. However, his attention had been distracted from Taryn. He squinted at the tank behind her, the one into which she had injected her vial of green liquid.

"What?" she asked, catching his eye. Following his line of vision, she turned around to look at the tank behind her.

The Sheznik inside hadn't had a tail two minutes ago.

But now, its tail was almost as long as its body. A thin, raw-pink bone structure had extended from the nub of the tail. Even as the Doctor watched, the thin bone thickened into a full-grown tail. Rounded rubbery scales sprouted over the raw pink skin and arrowhead-pointed scales slid up out of those – this was the Sheznik's final scale coat.

"I'm guessing –" The Doctor slipped off his glasses in surprise. "–that serum increases the rate of lizard tail regeneration."

"Oh, shoot." Taryn checked her watch again and recorded a number on the screen of the tank. "Yes, you're right. It increases mitosis, speeding up the rate of things like cellular division."

"But why?" the Doctor pressed. "What's it all for?"

"Originally," she sighed, "it was a serum designed to stimulate regeneration of dead brain cells. For mental diseases, or damage – anything that was done to the brain, this serum would help repair it. It was to _help_ people."

The Doctor studied her face. "Was? So what's it for now?"

She blinked, long and hard, and didn't respond. "Look, you should go, now," she said quietly. Her hands gripped themselves into fists, her knuckles paling. "You and Gamma. Please. However you got here, just use it to get away. _Now_."

"Taryn, I'm not going to leave here without rescuing you from this prison," the Doctor insisted quietly. "But first I want to know why the Daleks put you through this. What that serum was _for_."

There was another silence, and her shoulders slowly lowered. "Okay," she said. She looked up and matched the Doctor's gaze, her face expressionless. Nodding to the door through which she had come earlier, she continued, "Through there. If you want to know, I'll. . .show you."

Taryn stepped around the Doctor and over to the doorway. He turned and started to follow, then glanced at Gamma. The Dalek still hadn't moved. "Mind if Gamma comes with us?"

Her spine stiffened. "No Dalek," she said, not making eye contact, "friendly or otherwise."

The Doctor saw her fingers trembling as she typed in the code into the keypad. "Okay," he said gently. "Gamma? Want to just hang out here for a bit?"

"I will stay."

Stepping through the doorway, the hallway closed around the Doctor and Taryn like the throat of a giant monster. It wasn't unusually small, but there was no lighting, leaving it tight and dark. Taryn's footsteps echoed softly in front of the Doctor's.

"Hm. Homey," the Doctor commented.

"Well," Taryn said with a humorless laugh. "Daleks didn't think of building a bedroom, or a sofa, or installing a TV with cable – much less some lights in the hallways. They were kind enough to give me two labs to try to make some of those things for myself." She suddenly patted her pockets. "Here, though. I know where I'm going, but you might want a light." She passed a cold, hard object into the Doctor's hand.

He held it up, squinting through the darkness. "Lighter?"

"I don't smoke, I do science," she responded. Her voice echoed farther away from him, and he quickly stepped forward to catch up. "Some of my equipment is top-of-the-line; other stuff looks like it came out of a junk drawer."

The Doctor flipped it open, making a tiny spark in the air. The flame caught, offering a modest amount of light to illuminate the cramped walls around them.

As he looked around, he frowned and stopped walking. "Taryn, what's this?"

"What, sorry?" She sounded distracted.

"The marks on the wall." He lowered the lighter, and the flame lit up the section of the wall. There was a circular, CD-sized vent – oxygen dispersion, probably. But surrounding the vent were dozens of carved marks, each about the size of a toothpick.

"Well," she said. "They're what they look like. Tally marks. One for each day I've been stuck here."

The Doctor moved the lighter along the wall. They marks continued, all scratched into neat rows in groups of five.

"How long?" he asked.

"Um. By my last count, about thirteen months."

"Thirteen months," the Doctor repeated softly. He held the lighter up to the wall, looking at the carved marks.

She tapped his arm. "Come on. The secondary lab is just through here. One more turn."

When they rounded the corner, a rectangle of blueish-white light shone ahead. The Doctor flipped his lighter closed and pocketed it in his trench coat.

Taryn punched in a key code at the side of the glass door, and it slid open with a soft hiss.

"Aw, lovely!" the Doctor said approvingly as they stepped into a bright, white room. "Love a good scientist's lab– are you all right?"

Taryn had stopped halfway in the entrance. The Doctor came to a quick stop to avoid bumping into her.

She spun around and rammed the heels of her palms against the Doctor's shoulders. Caught off balance, he cried out and stumbled backward. His feet skidded against the cold black metal of the hallways again. Shocked at the shove, the Doctor stared dumbfounded at her. "Taryn?"

Two shining tracks of tears shined on her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I'm really, really, sorry, Doctor. _This_ is what the experiments were for."

The glass door slid across the doorway again and clicked.

The Doctor stepped forward. "What have you done? Taryn!"

She turned away as a secondary metal door slid across the entrance, blocking off the light.

"Taryn!" The Time Lord lunged at the door and slammed against it.

The door gave a loud click as it locked. Shocked, the Doctor stepped away as the hallways were sealed off into utter darkness.

"Hallway ventilation systems now online," announced a soft-spoken robotic voice from above.

"Hallway ventilation?" the Doctor repeated to the ceiling.

Every one of the CD-sized panels on the walls clicked and made a noise like the swiveling shutter of a camera. The Doctor whirled around, his eyes wide. "Oh, no no no no," he muttered to himself.

Gas hissed from every opening. A terrible, chemical-like smell stung the air and made the Doctor's eyes water.

"Augh!" He put an arm up to his face, covering his mouth and nose with the fabric of his sleeve. Digging in his pocket, he withdrew the sonic and activated it. A small smudge of blue light appeared in front of him, but as he thumbed the button, it intensified into a torch-like beam.

Unfortunately, it only highlighted the problem at hand. There _was_ some kind of gas that was being discharged from the vents, and it was thickening. The gas itself was thick and dark green – almost opaque.

"Okay," he muttered. "Not good. Very not good." He turned and retraced the way he and Taryn had come, his hand still over his mouth.

He recognized the door as he came upon it, and quickly slammed a palm against it. "Gamma! You still there?"

"Doc-tor?" The Dalek's voice came, muffled by the thick metal of the door.

"There's a discharge coming from the air vents in the hallways. Some kind of gas. I'm stuck – the doors are sealed. I can't get through."

"Sucker arm damaged!" Gamma said back. "I cannot un-lock."

"Doesn't matter. These doors are deadlock sealed. Not even the sonic can get through."

"Al-ter-natives?"

The Doctor hissed and pressed the cool tip of the sonic screwdriver against his forehead. There was one option, glaring at him like a star in supernova, but he didn't like it. However, with the gas swirling around him closer and closer, he realized quickly that there was little choice.

"You can still get to the hallway, yeah?" he shouted through the door. "Was that blocked off?"

"The door re-mains un-locked!" Gamma reported.

The Doctor pressed his thumb to the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. "Do you know how to fly a TARDIS, Gamma?"

"Yes." There was a quick silence. "The Doc-tor is not suggesting–"

"You _are_ a Time Lord, and I _am_ trapped," the Doctor said. He hissed through his teeth. "I don't like it and she won't like it, but –"

"If the TAR-DIS knows she is going to you, she will fly straight," Gamma responded, quite truthfully.

The Doctor nodded after a moment. "Fine. Go get the TARDIS. Teleport her here."

There were many, many things the Doctor had imagined saying to a Dalek. 'Go get the TARDIS' was _definitely_ not one of them.

"I o-bey!" Gamma made a soft whirring sound as he rolled away.

"Right then," the Doctor said to himself, turning around. The gas was coming like a physical wall, spiraling towards him. The vents on either side of him had spun open as well.

It seemed there was a race to be won.

He spun on his heel, and started running.


	6. Hold It

**Chapter: Fifth**

 **...Hold It...**

* * *

Gamma whirred through the doors of the lab. Leaving the dark room behind him, he emerged into the smooth white hallway again. The TARDIS loomed at the end of the hall.

Coming up to the TARDIS doors, Gamma looked up at the police box. Gamma's eyestalk looked down at its melted sucker arm, which would be useless for unlocking the door. His head dome whirring, he looked back up at the TARDIS. Trying his chance, he pushed forward, using his sucker arm to nudge the handle.

The door gave easily – it didn't appear to have been locked at all. Before Gamma went inside he suddenly had the feeling that the TARDIS had _allowed_ him entrance, more than anything else.

The thought slid away as he entered the TARDIS completely.

The inside of this machine glowed _gold_. The air was warm, and the center column split the warmth with a cool glass beam. No wonder the Doctor was proud to call this place home. Gamma was suddenly aware that he was a stranger in this place. Even if he was a Gallifreyan on the inside, in his Dalek armor he was an _enemy_.

Elevating up onto the console platform, Gamma gazed up at the center column through his eyestalk. "Your Doc-tor requires your help," he grated quietly.

The walls purred in response. The hexagonal lights stretching all the way up to the curved ceiling blinked slowly, like curious eyes being woken from sleep. Gamma took it as permission.

He moved around the console, his armor whirring, flipping switches with his sucker arm. There were only minor changes to make to the controls, as the Doctor was close by in the hallways. Once the coordinates were set, Gamma grasped the handbrake and pulled it back.

The TARDIS began teleporting in eagerness toward her Doctor.

* * *

Dead end.

The Doctor slammed against the wall, his palms flat against the cold metal. _Who builds a hallway with a dead end?!_

"Okay," he whispered. Turning and flattening himself against the wall, he assessed the situation.

It was bad. _Very_ bad.

Every vent had swiveled open and was continuing to discharge the gas. The air was thick with it, and the chemical scent still burned the air.

There was one option left. _How do I_ always _manage to get myself into situations where there's only one option left?_

When scanning the gas, the sonic had recognized that the gas was flammable. And the lighter that Taryn had given the Doctor was still in his pocket. His mind started to race.

If he sparked it on, the gas would catch fire but _also_ burn itself out. It would most likely light its way all the way back to the source of the gas. While the structure of these hallways was definitely fireproof, the source might not be as structurally sound. Taryn might still be in potential danger.

 _But why give me the lighter in the first place?_ If this was her plan all along, to trap him in a hallway filled with flammable gas, why give him a source of flame? She was clever. She would know how to protect herself.

Yes, well, all that aside, there was also the possibility, that _very quite_ definite possibility to consider – the explosion would be _big_. He would be burned, probably flung back into the road-blocked hallway. In such cramped quarters, it was more than likely.

Inhaling unknown gas or death by an explosion.

He always liked having a choice of how to die.

The Doctor pulled the lighter from his pocket and slowly raised it.


	7. And Breathe Out

**Chapter: Sixth**

 **...And Breathe Out**

* * *

The TARDIS's center column finally settled. Gamma watched it through his optic, then turned his attention to the doors. Clearly, the TARDIS had landed him _somewhere_. Gamma pushed a brightly colored lever on the console, and the doors swung open.

The Doctor stood right in front of the doors, his arm extended out in front of him. In his hand, a small flame flicked to life. The light was puny in comparison to the bright interior of the TARDIS. His head was turned away, his eyes scrunched up as if in preparation of some terrible fate.

"Ex-plain?" Gamma asked unceremoniously.

The Doctor's head snapped up in surprise, and his eyes widened. "Oh," he said. He lowered the lighter. "You did come." Glancing back at the lighter, he flipped the lid closed and slipped it into his pocket.

"I o-beyed," Gamma responded, confused.

"Yeah, but on the other hand, I was promised obedience by what appears to be a _Dalek,_ so. This is all a bit new." The Doctor jumped into the TARDIS and closed the doors after him.

"And speaking of a Dalek... _you_ teleported her." He silently stepped past Gamma up to the console platform. Fondly stroking the warm, rough coral that clutched the center console, he checked all the switches and buttons. He sniffed once. "Seems like she flew alright," he muttered under his breath.

Gamma remained quiet, knowing that this was a test to be passed.

"Well, then!" The Doctor spun to face Gamma, crossing his arms and leaning against the console with the casualty of pride. "I suppose I should welcome you to my Time and Relative Dimension in Space capsule – more commonly referred to as the TARDIS. And to be honest, I do believe you are the first Dalek to ever fly this one. Well, with favorable intentions at least."

"Through un-favorable cir-cumstances."

"Well, if wishes were horses." The Doctor knelt down and sonicked one of the metal grilles that made up the TARDIS floor. The panel popped up, and he lifted the grating off. "I'll be back in a sec. You stay there – don't think you'd fit anyway." The Doctor slipped down into the gap in the floor, vanishing deep into the TARDIS's basement.

Coming up to the edge of the hole, Gamma peeked in after him curiously. He could hear noises, but it was too dark to see anything. He dilated his optic, but still couldn't see anything.

The Doctor popped back up a few moments later, almost knocking his head against Gamma. As the Doctor hoisted himself up out of the floor again, the Dalek whirred back a few steps and reviewed his companion.

Trench coat now gone, the Doctor had (with surprising speed) changed into a full-body space suit. It was a bright orange color, complete with thick gloves and a helmet. The helmet had a wide, clear front, showing most of the Doctor's face. Only his mouth was obscured by two large vent canisters on the mask. "This will do nicely to filter out that gas," the Doctor said, adjusting one of the canisters.

"The Doc-tor intends to go back out?"

Through the glass, the Doctor grinned. "Oh, yes! There's no sense in building a hallway with a dead end." His voice was muffled through the thick mouthpiece. "And if Daleks are anything, they're practical to a fault. They wouldn't just go and build a wall in the middle of a walkway. There's got to be something behind that door."

When he opened the door again, the green gas swirled into the TARDIS. The Doctor waved it away and squinted into the hallway. It was still dark, and he reached up and switched on a light that was on the side of his helmet. A thin beam pierced through the swirling gas.

"Re-peat," Gamma said, following the Doctor to the door. He seemed a little bewildered by the information. "What door?"

The Doctor glanced at him. "Oh, you weren't there. Sorry. Got a bit trapped, just before. There's some sort of wall blocking off that hallway. That's probably why the TARDIS gravitated toward here – I had stopped running around so much, so she could focus on one steady heat signature."

He stepped out of the TARDIS and walked up to the wall. Gamma followed him out and closed the doors after him. The golden light from the TARDIS was shut off, leaving only the Doctor's narrow helmet lights to guide them.

The Doctor pressed his ear to the wall, listening through the thick material of his spacesuit, and gave it a tap with his knuckle.

"Definitely hollow," the Doctor murmured as Gamma came up beside him. He knocked on the wall again and listened to the reverberation.

"So where there's a door–" the Doctor took a step back and quickly surveyed the door "–there's got to be a handle. Ah!"

The lights on the Doctor's helmet illuminated a rounded indentation, set roughly shoulder-height into the wall. It was similar to the vents that had discharged the gas earlier, but smaller and with no slats.

"Sucker arm scan?" The Doctor ran a gloved finger over the raised rim – the hole was about the size of a tennis ball. "That'd be right. This base was built by Daleks, so they built a secret door that can only be unlocked by them." He glanced back at Gamma. "Or at least, by their armor. Want to give it a try?"

Gamma raised his sucker arm, and the rubber tip at the end caught the light. The shape it had been melted into a long time ago was almost unrecognizable. "Un-likely."

"Oh. Right," the Doctor murmured, frowning. "Forgot about that." His face scrunched up. "Blimey, you're bit of a rubbish Dalek, aren't you?"

Gamma didn't respond.

"Aw, don't look like that. It was actually a compliment." The Doctor slapped a gloved hand against Gamma's armor and turned back to the wall.

"Fortunately, it is not that kind of scan," Gamma said.

"Really," the Doctor said, frowning at the circular thing in the wall. He ran a fingertip around the raised rim. "Why?"

"It is con-cave," Gamma offered.

"Concave!" the Doctor blurted out almost at the same time, slapping a palm against the wall. "That's it, of course! If this was for use with a sucker arm, it would be convex, like a bubble sticking out of the wall. But it's concave. And it looks like there's a lens in there." He squinted into the darkness.

The color red flared into the little space. A thin wave of light passed over the Doctor's eye, scanning his retina. The scan finished, made a low growling noise, and an electronic voice sounded. _"Human. Not permitted."_

The Doctor blinked in surprise, but then a large grin stretched across his face. "Optic. It's an optic reader! That's something you _can_ help with. It'll let us pass with your eyestalk." He frowned, a little miffed. "Mind you, it's a bit inaccurate. Human, indeed."

"Mere-ly not Da-lek," Gamma translated. He moved forward, whirring his head dome around so his eyestalk was level with the circular scan.

The scanner passed over his optic, and made a positive ping. _"Dalek. Permitted."_

" _Molto bene_ , Gamma," the Doctor said approvingly.

The rounded door gave a groan, and steam hissed from its seams. Slowly it split into six triangular pieces, which swiveled away into the wall like the shutter of an old camera.

The rounded circle was pitch-black inside. Whether the room inside was five or a hundred feet deep was impossible to tell. Gamma rolled forward slowly, hesitantly.

As he crossed into the room, the movement seemed to trigger something. Something that sounded like a large generator began to power up, and lights snapped to life all around the room.

Gamma's pale blue pupil contracted in the sudden light, then slowly dilated to register what he was seeing.

"Oh, wow," the Doctor murmured in amazement.

His voice came back in echoes from the walls. This room was big, the biggest room in this base by far, and metallic on every surface. A huge, circular generator in the center of the room took up a majority of the space. Stationed around it were several deep indents in the floor. The curved generator glowed a brassy-gold, and there were large yellow spheres lining all its seams. _Definitely Dalek,_ the Doctor thought. _Can Daleks make_ anything _without sticking their own likeness on it?_

As the Doctor stepped through into the room, the round door swiveled automatically shut with a snap. He whirled around in surprise, just fast enough to see the last few wisps of the green gas dissipate into the air. "Well alright, then." Deeming the air in here clean enough to breathe, the Time Lord pulled off the helmet and followed Gamma as the Dalek slowly circled the large generator.

Set around the generator were insets in the floor. There were nine of them, each as wide as the Doctor's arm was long. They were set about two inches into the floor.

Each was in the exact shape of a Dalek's base – square at the back, triangular at the tip.

"Trans-port pods," Gamma said, rolling forward.

"Looks like it, yeah." The Doctor touched his tongue to the roof of his mouth as he bent down to study them. "Where do they transport _to_?"

The generator continued humming, increasing steadily. More monitors and lights were snapping to life. A console, the one closest to the generator, lit up.

Gamma was looking around. "There is a track log," he said. He rolled up to the console and typed some controls with his sucker arm. The attached screen lit up with bright blue writing, in a script that definitely wasn't English. Another scanner passed over Gamma's optic before allowing him into the computer. _"Dalek. Permitted."_

Instantly, he began typing, searching for the most recent coordinates.

Having nothing better to do, the Doctor started pacing around the room, checking out each corner. At the very back of the room there was a flat wall that looked like a wide garage door. There was a small, square window built into the top. He hopped up to it and peered through.

Through the little window, he saw a hallway – a short hallway, with clean, white walls. They appeared to end in a set of glass doors that led to a darker-lit room. . . .

"That's where the TARDIS first landed us," the Doctor said in surprise, taking a step back. He spun around to look at the rounded door they had just come through, his mind reconfiguring his mental map. "We've gone in one big circle." His head turned from one door to the other. "That's how the Daleks reached Taryn. They had transport pods, of _course_! The Daleks teleport here" –he started walking rapidly around the room – "go through this door, and have Taryn believe that they've just flown through ages of space to reach her. That other entrance is their quiet way into the hallways, if they just fancy on checking up on her progress. Stay hidden in the shadows so she doesn't know."

"Da-leks have no reason to hide," Gamma said. "Not from hu-mans."

"They weren't hiding themselves," the Doctor replied. He circled the large platform. "They were hiding this. This ga-reat big generator and Taryn's only way of escape. Clever, really," he said, gesturing at said generator. "Would save loads on fuel. Ixxa is one of the farthest planets from any sort of civilization. Getting here with physical fuel supply would cost an arm and a leg." He trailed off suddenly, looking lost in thought. "Arm and leg. . . how would that translate to Dalek, sucker-arm and gold sphere? Gun-stick and brown skirt slab?"

"Rel-e-vance?" Gamma asked patiently. His eyestalk didn't even budge from its steady position on the screen.

"Well, not really any, it's just–" The Doctor cut himself off and turned around, a grin on his face. "Was that sass? Did I just get sass from a _Dalek_?"

Gamma turned his head dome and looked at the Doctor, but didn't say anything. He turned back to the screen he was looking at and continued prodding the controls with his sucker arm.

The Doctor swiveled on his heels. His shoes scuffed against the floor, sending more echoes. Feeling restless, he paced over to where Gamma stood. "Any luck yet?" he asked, peering over the Dalek's shoulder.

"The co-ordinates are en-crypted," Gamma said back. On the screen, alien numbers flashed inside five empty boxes as he tried to break through.

"Yeah, probably another security measure," the Doctor murmured. His eyes flicked over the pixels for a moment, but he couldn't do much to help while Gamma worked. He stepped away, rapidly running both hands through his spiky hair. "That's the problem with Daleks, they're so bloody _clever_!" he hissed.

Very suddenly he frowned, lowering his arms from the top of his head.

"Gamma, can you get me access to this screen?" he asked, striding over to a control panel.

Without saying a word, Gamma hit a few more buttons on his panel. The scanner above his monitor scanned his optic again, and the screen in front of the Doctor illuminated.

" _Dalek present. Permitted."_

"Thank you, my tin friend." The Doctor started typing rapid-fire into the keyboard, sonicking the keypad sometimes when his fingers couldn't move fast enough to keep up with his head. His twin hearts began pulsing quickly as he read what was on the screen.

"Doc-tor," Gamma said, breaking into his train of thought. "The pods. . . ."

"Hnn?" Tongue pressed to the roof of his mouth, the Doctor raised his eyebrows but didn't shift his gaze from his screen.

"They trans-port to Earth."

" _What_?!" Now the Doctor did look over, his eyes wide and alarmed. "No, _no_! Check that again," he spat, beginning to type furiously on the keypad in front of him.

"There is no doubt!" Gamma said, without even glancing back at his monitor. "What is wrong?"

"No possible other route?" the Doctor asked, still typing. "No other planet it has ever transported to?"

"It is a straight-fire trans-port system," Gamma said.

"Straight-fire?" The Doctor glanced up, looking alarmed. "Two destinations only," he whispered to himself.

"What is wrong?" Gamma asked again.

The Doctor grabbed the edge of his monitor and whirled it around to face Gamma. "This"– he pointed with the sonic – "is a layout of this whole base." White lines glowed softly against a blue background, creating boxes and rectangles connected by tunnels – a blueprint. In the largest room, two blue circles pulsed slightly. A third circle glowed elsewhere in the base. "Right? So these two circles are us. This other one is Taryn. Now, if you, even hidden inside that Dalek casing, show up as a heat sig, we know that Daleks do show up on this sensor."

"Ac-cu-rate," Gamma said slowly.

The Doctor raised both eyebrows. "No ship docking bay to be seen anywhere. And only these _three_ dots as heat signatures." He tapped the screen with the shiny tip of the sonic. "That means that if this very teleporting bay is the only way out of this base. . ."

He turned his head back around to meet Gamma's eye. Slowly, Gamma nodded his eyestalk and finished the Doctor's sentence, his earpieces flashing with every syllable. "Then the Da-leks must be on Earth."


	8. Standoff

**Chapter: Seventh**

 **Standoff**

* * *

"But where, _where_?" the Doctor hissed. He hovered the sonic over the monitor, holding the button down. "They could be anywhere on earth, but this monitor's been encrypted. I know you couldn't break through, but the sonic can sometimes work a funny miracle. . . ." He frowned as he swept it across the screen again.

"We can-not use the teleport?" Gamma asked.

The Doctor pulled a hand through his spiky hair. "Don't know," he said. "You, definitely, but me – I don't _think_ so. This teleporter was built by Daleks, and they probably wouldn't have bothered building it compatible with human anatomy."

The sonic shorted out, and tiny sparks spat from its blue tip. "Behave!" the Doctor said sharply, tapping the sonic against his palm. "Don't be difficult _now_ ," he pleaded at it.

The screwdriver sizzled and released a faint smell of burnt toast.

"No, no, no!" the Doctor cried out. Shoving the sonic back into his jacket pocket, he slammed a palm against the edge of the monitor in frustration.

In response, the generator make a loud clicking noise and started to power up.

Both the Doctor and Gamma looked up quickly.

"Did the Doc-tor ac-ti-vate?" Gamma asked.

The Doctor touched his tongue to the roof of his mouth. "I don't think that was me," he said, very slowly. He gave Gamma a sidelong glance. "Which means there's someone else on the other side."

Gamma froze. "Da-leks." His husky, metallic whisper wasn't a question.

"Probably." The Doctor backed away from the monitor, keeping his eyes on the generator. "Probably, very, undoubtedly so." The golden spheres attached to the generator began to glow.

"Run?" Gamma asked, moving away from the teleporter as well.

" _Run_?" the Doctor repeated, puzzlement creasing his face. "Why run? This is our chance to talk to them, find out what all this is about."

"Doc-tor," Gamma said, raising his eyestalk to look the Doctor directly in the face. "The Da-lek squadron promised to kill me the next time they saw me." The Doctor looked back at him. "I am not as eager to speak."

After a moment, the Doctor gave a small nod. "Okay," he said. "Okay." His mind started working rapidly. "We'll take you back to the TARDIS. They still don't know you're with me, right? You can stay hidden in there, while I stay and have a little talk."

"I agree." Gamma rolled quickly over to the door through which they had come. The Doctor followed him, stepping backwards so as to keep an eye on the generator's progress. It was still slowly charging, which made sense – Earth was light-years away from Ixxa. Any kind of teleport over that distance would take a while to warm up.

"The door locked behind us when we came in," the Doctor said distractedly. "If you care to work a little more optic-magic on it. . . ."

Gamma stopped. "Doc-tor."

"Hm?" He glanced behind him.

The scanner to open the door was right next to it in the wall, about hip-height. Sticking out of it was a convex shape – a half-sphere.

" _That's_ a sucker-arm scan!" the Doctor said in shock. "Why have they got an optic reader on the outside and a sucker-arm scan on the inside?"

Gamma pulled away from the door. "It was made to trap me inside," he said slowly.

The Doctor felt a chill run through his spine. _How could they have known... how did they know we would be here?_

The generator behind them let out a huge clang, and the transport pods on the floor illuminated.

 _Time's up._

Adrenaline pulsed through the Doctor's body in a heartbeat. If they were going to hide, they would have to do it _now_. His head snapped to the left. "Cabinet!" he barked just as the room erupted into light and sound. He shoved Gamma toward a rounded storage cupboard in the corner of the room. The Dalek went in first, and the Doctor darted in after, clattering the door shut after himself in the same second the generator deactivated. Slowly, the noise in the room lowered to a rumble.

Hearts pounding, the Doctor looked out through the crack in the cupboard doors. There were two. . . no, three silhouettes that he could make out, all glowing white from the teleport. As the teleport shut down, the light faded.

 _Those aren't Daleks_. He squinted, willing his pupils to dilate in the darkness. Three beings had definitely materialized, but two of them looked bipedal, certainly not machine.

Against the low light of the overhead lights, he saw the two bipeds drop to the ground on all fours and move toward the door. Thick tails dragged on the floor behind them with a soft hissing sound.

The Doctor pulled away from the crack in the cupboard in shock. He turned to Gamma, who was watching him intently. _Shezniks_ , he mouthed to the Dalek.

The one Dalek that had materialized with them was at a console, its sucker arm plastered firmly over one of the controls. The arm rotated and worked the computer. The door that led into Taryn's main lab, rather than the one that led into the hallway, opened for the Shezniks.

The lizard-like creatures slipped out of the room, leaving the Dalek alone with the Doctor and Gamma.

Breathing quietly, the Doctor watched through the slim crack as the Dalek circled the room. It appeared to be checking the machines and monitors.

Then, without even turning around, it spoke.

"We know you are hid-ing, Doc-tor. Step into the light."

Its voice was deep, much deeper than the Doctor had ever heard from a Dalek. It was a metallic, gravelly sort of sound.

As the Dalek turned around, the Doctor saw a little glint of gold metal on its front – Ο. Omicron.

"Well then, Omicron ol' buddy," the Doctor started brightly, pushing open the cupboard door. He put his hands in his pockets and closed the door behind him with his foot. "So nice to finally meet you in the flesh – or," he gestured to the Dalek, "you know, the metal."

"The Doc-tor is not here alone," Omicron stated calmly.

"Correctamundo, you clever thing!" the Doctor said cheerfully. "Because you're here in the room with me. Ten points."

"The parasite is here with you," Omicron continued, ignoring him.

"Parasite?" the Doctor repeated, his cheerful front dropping like a stone. "Sort of like how you lot latched onto Taryn and started feeding on her intellect for your own purposes? _That_ kind of parasite? Yeah," he said darkly, "I think we're still both on the same page."

"The parasite," Omicron responded, "that lives inside the skin of Gamma to keep itself alive. Time Lord filth like you, Doc-tor."

"What, a _living_ Time Lord?" the Doctor said. He puffed out his cheeks and shook his head. "Blimey. I've never met your particular kind of Daleks – some sort of Greek-named subset, I'm guessing?" He gestured to Omicron's golden Ο symbol. "But I didn't know you were that behind on the times. The Time War, remember? I'm the only living Time Lord left."

"You are the last one living," Omicron said, "but not the last one alive."

The Doctor scoffed. "Well, now you're just making things up to sound all –"

"The Time-Lord filth lives inside Gamma," the Dalek said. "Keeping itself alive."

The Doctor raised one eyebrow, challenging. "Oh yeah? A zombie Dalek that's got a Time Lord inside it? Sounds pretty ludicrous, if you ask me." He leaned up against a nearby console and crossed one foot over the other.

Omicron didn't reply, so the Doctor continued. "But what's _really_ odd about all this are those Shezniks." He folded his arms. "I heard that race went extinct. Interesting that they're back – working for you, of all things – and simultaneously having experiments done to them? Very odd."

"They volunteered," Omicron growled.

" _Really_." The Doctor dragged out the word, and his eyes were hard. " _Volunteered_. Or were they persuaded? Like Taryn was forced into being persuaded?"

"The human was necessary. The parasite remains unnecessary."

"If you're looking for Gamma, I'm afraid–"

For the first time, Omicron's low voice cracked into a shriek. "The Time-Lord filth is not Gamma!"

"Ah, right, I get it," the Doctor said softly. "You lot miss Gamma, eh? One of your own squadron falls in battle and, to your ultimate joy, rises again when the smoke clears. But it turned out a bit different than you expected, didn't it? Suddenly your greatest enemy is in your midst, wearing the armor of one of your own."

"The Doc-tor saw its memories," Omicron said, stating it more than asking it.

"The Doctor," he corrected, "is only very cleverly guessing. I haven't said I've even heard of this impossible story."

Omicron looked back at the Doctor, calm once more.

"No," it said, "you have not."

The door opened again. The Doctor whirled around to see the Shezniks coming back.

They had Taryn.

She was unconscious, her head hanging forward and her feet dragging uselessly on the floor, as the Shezniks hustled her forward into the room.

"Sh-sh-she has-s-s been sedated as ins-s-structed," the first Sheznik hissed softly to Omicron. The two lizard-like creatures set her down on one of the transport pods. She crumpled into a limp heap, and they set the armored case beside her.

"Taryn!" The Doctor lunged forward, his eyes wide. There were two small pricks of blood on the side of her neck, but she was still breathing.

The huge, seven-foot tall Shezniks stepped in front of him and easily wrestled him back, away from her. Omicron watched calmly.

"What do you need with her?" the Doctor demanded, pulling against them. "You had her working on a serum, and she said it was complete. What's in that briefcase?"

"The original plan failed," Omicron spoke. "This is the secondary plan."

The Doctor opened his mouth to respond, then frowned. "No, didn't answer my question, actually. _What's that_?"

Omicron didn't reply.

"Tell me where you're taking her," the Doctor said, his eyes steely.

Omicron looked the Doctor straight in the eye. "We are taking her to you."

His brow wrinkled. "You're – what?"

"Stain him," Omicron commanded.

One Sheznik extended a sharp claw from its index finger. The Doctor looked at it in alarm. Lowering it to the palm of its other hand, the lizard forced the claw in until it broke the skin. Shiny, dark purple blood instantly pooled up out of the cut. The Sheznik dragged its claw in a circle around its palm, cutting into the scaly skin.

The Doctor frowned, puzzled. "What are you doing?"

Lightning-fast, the Sheznik grabbed the Time Lord's wrist and thrust it up into the air. As the Doctor cried out in alarm, the creature pressed its bleeding palm into his. He tried to pull away, but the lizard's grip was like a manacle around his wrist. The blood from its palm seeped into his skin, and it was icy-cold. He hissed out a pained breath.

Behind the Sheznik, Omicron didn't move at all. It remained completely still, staring at the Doctor through a cold blue optic.

After a moment, the Sheznik's fingers snapped away. The Doctor pulled his hand back and held it up to the light to inspect it.

Left there in the flat of his palm was a smudgy, hollow circle. As the cold blood warmed on his skin, it faded into a dark black.

"What was that?" the Doctor asked, lowering his arm.

"You have been stained," Omicron growled in its gravelly voice.

The Doctor dropped his arm, giving the Dalek a _well-that-was-obvious_ look. "Well, I know _that_. Why?"

"Stain the parasite," it said to the Shezniks instead of replying.

"You mean that Time-Lord-in-a-Dalek thing? Sorry, he's not here," the Doctor started, but he was cut off.

"Incorrect," Omicron growled. "The parasite is merely hiding."

On cue, both Shezniks turned straight to the cabinet. They strode forward and yanked the door open.

"Doc-tor!" Gamma shrieked as the Shezniks dragged him out into the light.

"Sorry, Gamma, I'm sorry!" the Doctor said quickly, reaching an arm out to Gamma. "But I don't think he's going to kill you. Not here."

"The squadron has not forgotten their promise," Omicron said, advancing slowly on Gamma. "The parasite will be ex-terminated and honor will be brought to Gamma's name once more." For a long moment both Daleks stared hard into the other's eyestalk. "But ex-ter-mination will come only when it is necessary."

As Omicron spoke, the second Sheznik repeated the same ritual as the first, cutting into its palm and making the circle. It stepped up behind Gamma and, purring softly, pressed its bloody hand to his head dome. The Dalek trembled but did not move.

When it stepped away, the Doctor saw the mark. On Gamma's head dome, in between his right earpiece and eyestalk, there was a circle identical to the Doctor's.

They had both been marked, but why?

He knew one thing – the Daleks knew more than he did. Omicron had seemed to know a disturbing number of things about both him and Gamma, both what they had done and what they were about to do. It made him uneasy – Daleks didn't have time travel. They never had.

"So what happens now, then?" the Doctor asked. "You gonna take us away as well? Show us the secret base of operations?"

"S-s-slow yours-s-self, Time Lord," the first Sheznik hissed softly, mockingly.

"The Doc-tor and the parasite are not yet required," Omicron said.

The Shezniks took their places on two transport pods. The Dalek followed them, hovering over to its own pod.

"Aw, but we're all here, why not tell us just a _bit_ of your masterful evil plan?" the Doctor said, striding forward.

"We will see you again, Doc-tor," Omicron said as the teleporter charged up again, "when you are ready to die."

* * *

 **A/N: Oh wow, thanks so much for all your kind reviews, follows and favorites! You guys are awesome! :D Annienygma: I came up with the concept (a Time Lord inside a Dalek's skin) before I watched Asylum of the Daleks because I watched DW later on DVDs. xP I was halfway through Ten's season when this story started. But I agree, they are similar!**


	9. To the Devil's Triangle

**Chapter: Eighth**

 **To the Devil's Triangle**

* * *

The teleport flashed a bright, brilliant white again. The Doctor lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the harsh glare, and a fluorescent heat passed over him.

When he lowered his hand, the room had darkened once more. Omicron, the two Shezniks, and Taryn had vanished.

Gamma turned to look at the Doctor.

The Time Lord sniffed deeply. "Well," he said. "Our next meeting with them won't be so cheery, will it? I'll be 'ready to die'. Always so _dramatic_ , Daleks, aren't they?"

"Doc-tor," Gamma spoke softly, for a Dalek. "Da-leks do not forget their words."

"That a fact? Blimey, hope I've never promised one any money."

"Om-i-cron's threats are not idle!" Gamma said, his gravelly voice rising with emotion.

The Doctor's cheerful front faded. "I know," he said quietly. "But then I've been promised death so much it almost means nothing anymore."

Gamma looked at him incredulously. "I have not had such a privilege," he said, "of constant death threats."

The Doctor, who had been looking lost in thought, suddenly looked back at Gamma. "You know what," he said, "you're right. And I don't much like it when my friends are threatened."

Bright lights suddenly flared into the dark room, turning everything a fluorescent red. A long, low alarm began to howl above them, reaching a high pitch that made the Doctor's skin prickle. He spun around to look at Gamma. "What's that?"

"Detonation of Ixxa base: imminent," a calm robotic voice announced from the ceiling. "Calculating. . . calculating. . . ."

"Aah, that's it," the Doctor murmured, raising his eyebrows. "The Daleks set this base to self-destruct."

"WHAT!" Gamma shrieked.

"They gave us a time limit, but, yeah. Definitely going to explode. Makes sense, I guess. They've taken Taryn away now. She was the only one they needed."

"Three minutes until detonation," the pleasant voice said over the mournful wail of the alarm.

"Okay. Okay," the Doctor muttered, running both hands through his hair several times. "The Daleks knew we would be here, right?" He didn't direct the question at Gamma and continued speaking to himself. "Right. And then they gave us _these_. . . ." He thrust his right hand into the air, exposing the black circle of inky blood staining his palm. "Either a tracking device, or some sort of . . . I don't know. New fad? Cool circle tattoos? Permanent. . . permanent tattoos. Why bother with that if they were planning to kill us? Which means!" he said loudly as a new thought occurred, "which _must_ mean they're planning on us still surviving this!" He spun on his heel and looked around the room with fresh, frenzied eyes. "Which means we have some way of a quick escape."

"Two minutes," continued the countdown from above.

The Doctor started pacing in a wide circle around the generator and spoke even faster, with fewer pauses for breath. "But why have this base explode, that doesn't make much sense does it, they spent ages of time and effort building this place, if we're going to survive this anyway, why stack on the pressure – AH! That's it! Pressure," he said, snapping both fingers and spinning on his heel to start pacing the other way. "Either the Daleks just want the stakes to be more exciting or maybe they believe the scientifically debunked myth that one's mental capacity operates faster while under periods of extreme stress. Of course, maybe they know a little bit more than humans do and know that that fact is actually true of Time Lords, cos my mind is on _fire_ right now!" He clapped and started pacing the other way again, rubbing both hands together right beneath his chin. "So, what have we got? Locked door – well, make that _two_ locked doors – and one. . ." he slowed down and looked at the generator, ". . . active and alive teleportation bay straight out of this very base. Still. . . still running and ready to go."

"Is the Doc-tor coming?" Gamma asked, his monotone voice sounding bored. The Dalek had already stationed itself on one of the teleportation pads and was calmly waiting for the Doctor to come to the same conclusion.

"Omicron never deactivated it, I'm assuming?" the Doctor asked.

"The generator never turned off!" Gamma said by way of response.

"Oh, yeah, and you just _happened_ to notice it while I was very busy worrying about other things," the Doctor said, leaping onto his own pad. There were large silver buttons welded onto the generator, each directly in front of its own pad.

"These fire up each pod separately, I assume?" When Gamma nodded, the Doctor reached forward and hovered a palm over his button. "Shall we?"

Gamma nodded once with his eyestalk, and the Doctor pressed his firmly. It clicked in and stayed that way as the generator began charging up again.

"We are going to the Da-leks?" Gamma asked suddenly.

"Only destination that makes sense."

"Thirty seconds," the robotic voice chimed in from above.

As the light intensified, Gamma pulled away, leaving his teleport pad.

"What are you doing? Get back on!" the Doctor said, having to shout over the noise of the generator.

"I am not yet ready to die, Doc-tor," Gamma said.

"Gamma, you _will_ die if you stay –!" The Doctor's vision blurred into white light, and he was teleporting, completely alone, his mouth open in a scream. " _Gamma_!"

* * *

Something hard and metal prodded the Doctor in the ribs.

He let out an involuntary moan and shifted slightly. His head was throbbing; he felt dizzy and thick.

The hard metal thing jabbed him again, poking into his bruised-feeling lungs.

"Arr _ight –_ oy, _watch it_ ," he mumbled in protest. His eyes opened stickily, and light burned painfully against them. He blinked them shut again with a groan. Feeling like he was moving through cold molasses, he raised both hands to his face and rubbed the bleariness from his eyes. His chest hurt, and his fingers felt numb.

After a moment the fog in his head began to dissipate. As he opened his eyes again, the world cleared, bringing images into sharp, bright clarity.

The first thing he saw was a set of bulging golden eyes on a leathery-skinned head staring down at him, not blinking. It had a huge, gaping mouth that looked like a sieve. Startled by its close proximity, the Doctor cried out and pushed himself backwards. He could now see the rest of the creature, which was bipedal, covered in loose leather clothes, and had two hands that were holding onto a golden stick.

His eyes came fully into focus on the business-end of a shining gold rifle.

"Your name, business, and what you were intending sneaking aboard this ship," growled a low, throaty voice from behind the leather mask. Or rather, the _gas_ mask, the Doctor corrected himself.

"Oh, I should have known," he muttered, letting his defenses lower with relief. "Human. Humans and their _guns_. What's the mask for, if I may ask?"

"'What's the _mask_ for?' _What's my ruddy mask for_?!" the man hissed back, sounding truly incredulous. He reached one hand up to his gas mask to unbuckle it.

"That's about the gist of what I said, I suppose," the Doctor said, wary once again.

The mask fell away into the man's hand. He wrenched it away from his face, revealing a scarred, weathered face that looked to be in a very bad temper. One side of his toothless mouth was pulled up into a sneering grimace, closing his left eye in the process. His right eye, on the other hand, was sharp, intelligent, and an eerily bright blue, like radioactive crystal.

"I'd ask where your mask is, but there's no need, is there? I'm sure you were ruddy alright tucked away back 'ere, hiding in the pressure-protected engine room, your lungs safe from the toxic pea soup that's outside," the man continued in a snarl. "Right?"

The Doctor blinked and moved his mouth soundlessly. Even if he was still feeling out of sorts right now, the sentence hadn't made a crumb of sense.

The man jabbed the Doctor's ankle. "Git to your feet, or I'll blow 'em off."

"Alright, alright, no need to be hasty," the Doctor said. "Let's keep our heads. . . and for that matter, our feet. . . ." He stood up and raised both hands to his head.

"Sorry, I'm not actually quite sure how I got here," the Doctor continued as he looked around with a frown. He was in a small, tight room, paneled with a dark wood. There were several rattling, hissing, metal drums at one end of the room, lined up in a row and each as tall as the Doctor. Dozens of gleaming copper pipes connected to the drums and ran up the walls and into the ceiling, disappearing through holes in the wood. Steam hissed from weak joints in the pipes, filling the air with steam and making it hard to breathe. There was a door behind the man but no windows, making the room even more airless. "And. . . where _is_ here, actually?"

"The solar system, planet Earth, middle of the Atlantic," the man said mockingly. "More importantly, the engine room of the pirate ship _Cockatrice_. I suppose you have a nice little story as to how you snuck onboard."

"Pirates? You're a pirate?" The Doctor looked genuinely happy for a moment. "Lovely. Always wanted to meet one. Sorry, I don't actually know _how_ I got onboard your ship –"

The man facing him actually cocked his gun. "Nor do I. So you'd best explain yourself 'efore I lost my temper."

"Ey, ey, watch where you point that." The Doctor reached a finger forward and gently guided the gun's nozzle away from him. "People get hurt with those things, you know."

The man let out a snarl and swung the gun back to the Doctor, aiming purposefully for his throat. "Think that's the general idea."

The Doctor started to remember. "Wait, hold on, hold on, I was. . . I was. . . ." He groped for the memory, the word. _Transporting?_

Teleporting.

"OH!" His hands flew to his head. "Gamma! I'm so stupid! Gamma's –" He spun around to look around the room, but stopped short as more memories came flooding back to him. "Gone," he whispered, finishing the sentence. "He's gone."

A cold metal ring pressed the back of the Doctor's neck. "I wouldn't make any more sudden moves, mate. You stay right where you are or I'll blast you t' bits."

The Doctor didn't move. His mind was working quickly, retrieving everything he could remember from before waking up. The memories came firing back into his mind like bullets.

The generator.

The teleport.

Daleks.

Gamma –

 _Oh, Gallifrey._

After a moment, the Doctor slowly raised his hands again. "All right," he said quietly. "All right. If you'll just let me turn slowly round and reach into my jacket, I can show you who I am and why I'm here."

"Won't matter who you are if the captain don't want you here," the man grunted, but the gun pulled away from the Doctor's neck nonetheless. A hand gripped his shoulder and flipped him around quickly.

He winced at the swift movement – his body was still aching from the teleport – but his mind highlighted the man's last statement. " _You're_ not the captain, then?" he asked, rubbing his shoulder.

A corner of the man's lip twitched in irritation. "First mate," he growled. "Big man's on his way right now to sort all this out."

"First mate, then. Brilliant. You can help me sort it out with him." The Doctor licked his lips and chose his words carefully. "Cos I'm _hardly_ a stowaway. If I could get my. . . credentials?"

At the man's curt nod, the Doctor slowly reached into his trench coat pocket and retracted a thin leather wallet. "I am this ship's new. . . Overseer. It's a position above the captain, in charge of special cargo. Fairly recent sort of job popping up – there's not many of us around yet."

The man took the wallet from the Doctor with rough, scabbed hands and squinted at it.

Trying to emanate calm, the Doctor stared straight back into the man's blue eye. Up close, the Doctor realized the man wasn't closing his left eye – the burned skin on his face had scarred over it completely.

"Overseer, huh?" the man grunted as he pushed the psychic paper back into the Doctor's hands. "Sure. We'll see what the captain has to say 'bout that."

Heavy footsteps thudded against the floorboards overhead.

The man smiled, revealing shiny metal teeth. "Well, speak of the devil. Here he comes now."

"Stowaway, yeh said, Gork! Never had that happen on my ship before!" The captain's booming voice, like nearby thunder, sounded loud even through the door before he burst through it.

The door snapped opened on its hinges, and instantly the captain seemed to take up the entire space of the small room. He was tall, and about as wide around the middle. His belly swelled over a broad leather belt, which hung heavily from the weight of guns and a golden gas mask swinging from it. He had extravagant eyebrows and a long, rust colored beard that hung below his chest.

"But then I like me a new adventure." The man looked straight at the Doctor. Beneath his bushy eyebrows, his irises were gray, his pupils misty.

"Claims he's an ' _Overseer'_ , cap'n." The first man, who had had the Doctor at gunpoint, spoke sharply.

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Gork," the captain said, never taking his eyes off the Doctor. "I'll take care of him from here."

Gork nodded curtly, reaffixed his gas mask over his face, and slipped out the door without even glancing back at the Doctor.

As the door clattered shut again, the captain raised one eyebrow at the Doctor. "Yeh're welcome to explain yourself well and proper now, before I decide what should happen to yeh."

"O-Overseer." The Doctor offered the psychic paper again. "New job, not many have heard of it. In charge of special cargo."

The man looked the paper over carefully. After a few moments he looked up at the Doctor again. The Time Lord tried not to hold his breath and offered a smile.

And the captain returned it. "Overseer, eh?" he chuckled, tossing the wallet back. "Hell, if we find cargo worthy of being called 'special', you can be in charge of it. Whadda we call yeh? Got a name?"

Relief made his smile widen more genuinely. "Doctor." He offered his hand.

"Cap'n." The man gripped it firmly and gave a hefty shake that traveled all the way up to the Doctor's shoulder.

"Right," the Doctor said, and blinked. "Captain what?"

The man let out a bark of a laugh and raised one eyebrow. "Doctor who?"

The Doctor grinned back at him. He was starting to like this man – at least more than his first mate. "Touché. Just 'the Doctor' will do, er, Captain. . . Cap'n."

"Just Cap'n! If it's not to much effort!" The man slapped the Doctor's shoulder. "Save your time and breath, and don't waste mine. Now, my ship set sail with fourteen and I know every mate down to the cabin boys. Do enlighten me as to how I missed yeh, or we'll just have to throw you overboard to keep that count."

The man's tone remained jovially pleasant, but the Doctor suddenly had a feeling he wasn't joking at all.

"Of course," he said quickly. "Forgive the intrusion on your ship. I came here by way of. . . ." He suddenly faltered. "What year is this?"

"3012." Cap'n said it as _thirty-twelve_.

"Right, of course." The number ran quickly through the Doctor's mind. _Earth. . . human civilization. . . invention of teleport, year 2645_. "I came from a teleport. Didn't mean to end up here, honestly. . . Overseers are in great demand, you see," he hastened to add. "I think I was supposed to end up somewhere rather different. The destination must have malfunctioned, or. . . ." He broke off again as a thought occurred. "Have you . . . have you ever heard of Daleks?" he asked carefully. "They're made of brown metal, they have gold spheres all over them, blue optics?"

Cap'n leaned back with a knowing glint in his eye. "Aye, I see," he said softly. "So yeh're treasure seeking as well? Heard the rumors onshore?"

Not quite what the Doctor had been expecting. His brow furrowed. "Rumors?"

"Nae? They'd best keep their Overseers more in check." Cap'n lowered his voice and leaned closer. "Well see, some folks have been talkin' – rumors, you know. Started when some members of a shipwrecked crew washed up on the shore from crossing the Atlantic. Apparently they were mad, scared outta their wits, the lot of 'em. 'I seen it,' each of them said. 'That Bermuda Devil in the sea.'"

 _Atlantic – the Bermuda Triangle_. The pieces clicked together, piquing the Doctor's interest. He leaned forward a little as well.

"So the story went, their ship had been devoured by the sea. Some terrible beast had 'swallowed it whole,' they said.

"We tossed the story aside, 'course – them were just tall tales spun by madmen sick from the sea. Probably lost their ship in a hellstorm and felt shamed when they hightailed it straight outta their duties onto a lifeboat." Cap'n paused for a moment. "But then there came more stories. Each one the same – no extra embellishments, no fanciful details. All just looked scared – like they were scared to be alive, maybe. In every account, more'n half of the crew were missing. They all described the beast the same way."

Cap'n's eyes got a faraway sort of look to them as he recalled the details. "Three great big claws, they said. It's got hide like steel – nothing can get through it. Three blue eyes, round as you like, with silver pupils in 'em like pearls. Spines of pure gold – pure gold!" he chuckled, punching the Doctor's shoulder. "Pure profit!"

The Doctor didn't move. "Your first mate said we were in the middle of the Atlantic ocean," he started slowly.

Cap'n gave a sharp laugh, and it the noise was like a gunshot in the small space. "Well, I hav'n't told yeh the best bit!" he barked, swinging to his feet and stamping over to the door. His hand resting on the handle, he raised his extravagant eyebrows at the Doctor. "We're out to hunt the beast too!"

He swung the door wide open. Instantly, the salty scents of the sea swirled into the room in one gust. Outside, green and white waves crashed against each other, filling the air with wet, splashing sounds. There was absolutely no land in sight. The Doctor stared out, his eyes wide, bracing himself against the wall of the room.

No Gamma.

No TARDIS.

And a crew of pirates on a suicide mission at sea.


	10. Cargo Arrival

**Chapter: Ninth**

 **Cargo Arrival**

* * *

The Doctor was going stir-crazy.

It had been three days since he found himself on the pirate ship _Cockatrice_. Fortunately, the captain had swallowed his story about being an Overseer mildly enough, which meant he could stay.

Unfortunately, he _had_ stayed – he had little choice in the matter. They were still sailing through what seemed like an endless sea, each day rolling into the next.

The Doctor had good sea legs, but itching feet. He needed to move, needed to get away. Staying in one place, and for such a long period of time, was almost intolerable.

He now sat alone, in a small, darkly paneled room in the ship. It was a small cabin directly beneath the captain's quarters, filled with maps and navigational charts of the stars. It was more of a storage closet, really, but the Doctor had been allowed to stay here for his time on _Cockatrice_. In return, the Doctor had offered to fix up all the navigational charts in the room, as he found they were riddled with errors. Cap'n had only grunted in reply, and mumbled something about not even using paper maps anymore anyway. Restless with inactivity, the Doctor had started the work.

"Well, that's not right at all," he now murmured to himself, bent low over a map. The heavy parchment lay open-faced on a desk, heavy stones weighing down each corner. The Doctor scratched out the ink of a charted star and redrew it an inch to the left, making small notes in the margins beside it. "Tetron 7. . . Not _actually_ a star – just a really big planet, and a lot farther away. Lovely people. Taught me how to whistle through a mouthful of saltine crackers. Nasty gravity, though. Really gets you down after a while."

The Doctor found he was talking to himself a lot these days. He didn't like silence, and being alone made him feel uneasy. Since he was the only one around who was interested enough in hearing himself talk, he had decided he was his own company for now.

"Now then," he said, dipping the pen back into the inkwell. "Onto fixing the planetary movements?"

With a sigh of resignation, he bent to start the work.

The pen's nib didn't even touch the paper before the Doctor stopped, his hand hovering centimeters over the paper. His head was turned to the door.

Living on this ship for three days, he had gotten used to every creak that _Cockatrice_ made every day.

But this wheezing, groaning sound was quite another thing.

The TARDIS.

The Doctor dropped his pen, splattering ink all over the map, and started running.

* * *

 _The main deck, the main deck – there it is!_

The Doctor's pounding hearts lifted joyfully as he saw the top of the TARDIS – its lovely yellow light, the white sign, the windows.

A small crowd was gathering around the TARDIS, with Cap'n at its center. The crew were murmuring excitedly under their breaths.

"Cap'n – Cap'n!" The Doctor elbowed his way through the crowd of pirates. Standing up straight as he could in front of the captain, he started speaking rapidly. "If you'll remember, I came onboard your ship as an Overseer – person in charge of special cargo? And this" – he reached out a hand and touched the TARDIS – "is in fact the very cargo I was placed on this ship to oversee. So if I may. Please have your boys clear off while I. . . well, you know. Oversee. Do my job." He stood straight, both hands behind his back.

Cap'n squinted down at the Doctor through his foggy gray eyes. "Fair enough," he shrugged. "Just get it off my deck."

"Absolutely, Cap'n." The Doctor glanced around quickly. "I'll step right in and have it. . . well, shall we say _moved_ , to the lower decks?"

Cap'n swelled his chest and barked to the rest of the crew, who still clustered tightly around them in interest. "Aright, scatter, ye mutts! Show's over! Back to your posts!"

The crew scurried away instantly, footsteps clattering against the deck as they all headed in their separate directions. The Doctor darted forward to unlock the TARDIS door, and wrestled his body inside as quickly as possible.

As he shut the door, all the sounds of outside were sealed into silence. He pressed his forehead up against the wood, feeling both hearts beating rapidly in his chest. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, inhaling the familiar scent of his TARDIS again.

He was _home_.

Something rattled on the metal grating behind him.

Without moving his forehead from the door, the Doctor opened his eyes. His voice was quiet when he spoke.

"You lied."

Gamma shifted uncomfortably.

"Back on the Ixxa base, you lied to me. You said you couldn't get through the locked door. It was a trap, you said, built to keep you inside that room. It worked, too, just like it was supposed to – until Omicron left the computers alive and online. You activated the teleport for me, to get me out of there, but you unlocked the door for yourself. To get to the TARDIS."

"The Doc-tor knew?" Gamma said quietly.

"Oh, you're too clever to sacrifice yourself because you're _scared_ ," the Doctor said, finally turning himself around to face his companion. "Also, a large part of you is Dalek, so even you had to realize killing yourself _because_ you weren't ready to die was really oddly flawed logic."

Gamma gave one nod and turned his head dome away for a moment.

The Doctor stepped past the Dalek and up onto the center console. Emotions were swirling inside him, and he didn't know what to feel towards Gamma. He first needed to move the TARDIS away from curious eyes.

Carefully checking the monitors, levers, and switches, the Doctor deemed that everything was still in perfect working order. He set the coordinates, and the TARDIS started teleporting to the lower cargo decks. After a moment he breathed heavily and leaned away from the console, crossing his arms.

The TARDIS was silent.

"So where." The Doctor spoke quietly. "Where did you need to go? Where did you have to take the TARDIS that I wouldn't have taken you?"

Gamma didn't look at the Doctor when he spoke. "The – Time-Lords."

The Doctor blinked, caught off guard. "The Time Lords?" His face creased in puzzlement. "I don't understand. They were destroyed, Gamma. They died with Gallifrey."

"I did not know!" Gamma shrieked hotly, still looking away. "The Da-leks fled the war before its end!"

The Doctor raised both eyebrows in surprise. "You _left_? You left the Time War? You lot were _Daleks_. It was your fight just as much as the Gallifreyans'."

"A re-treat was ordered! It was the most logical course of action to en-sure the sur-viv-al of our squad-ron!"

Gamma's eyestalk swirled around and met the Doctor's eyes. The Doctor looked back into the optic, his face a mix of bafflement and concern, and said nothing.

"We lat-er learned of Gall-i-frey," Gamma continued, softer. "But I hoped. . . ."

"Gamma, I told you, when we first met. I told you what happened to them."

"I – did – not – be-lieve," said the Dalek hesitantly. "The Doc-tor told me but I could not be-lieve." A pause. "But the TAR-DIS showed me."

The Doctor glanced up at the crystal blue column of the TARDIS as it settled and nodded absentmindedly. "We're members of an extinct race, my friend."

Gamma looked up at the console as well. "What is our current loca-tion?" he asked.

"Currently?" The Doctor strode past Gamma and pushed open both doors of the TARDIS.

The doors opened up to a large, dark, dusty room, bringing in scents of dust.

Hopping out onto the wooden floor, the Doctor spun in a circle and opened his arms. "Currently, we're in the cargo hold, of a fat old ship called the _Cockatrice_ , run by suicidal pirates – they're not so bad, though, just keep out of their way – on our way to the middle of the Atlantic ocean, in the year 3012." He dropped his arms and started to turn away, then seemed to remember something else. "Oh, and, apparently, there's a man-eating leviathan waiting for us in the ocean at the end of it all."

Gamma's earpieces lit up, as if he were about to speak, then darkened hesitantly. "Oh."

The Doctor grinned and shook his head. "If only it were as simple as they think it is." He sucked in a breath and rubbed his palms together. "Because we're headed straight for the Dalek's main base right now."

Gamma jolted. "My. . . squad-ron?"

"The Bermuda Triangle." He nodded. "That's where they've been this whole time – hiding out in their own safe little corner of the ocean, making ships and planes disappear for centuries."

"They swore to kill me," Gamma said.

"Not just you." The spiky-haired man held up his hand, displaying the smudged circle of black blood on his palm. "I'm included in the deal, remember?"

The Dalek's head swiveled, displaying his own black circle printed onto his head dome.

The Doctor heaved a breath and curled his fingers over his tattoo. "Tell you what," he said, "let's open a window."

* * *

"Bit of an odd ship, this one," the Doctor said, running the whirring sonic over a latch in the wall. "Windows, latches, everything is where it shouldn't be. Like a schizophrenic quilt that forgot what it was supposed to be halfway through. But for a cargo hold" – the sonic finished its work, and the latch popped open – "it does have a pretty nice view."

A square of the wooden paneling on the wall lifted, revealing the night sky. Through the misty glass, heavy clouds were visible, shifting beneath the sky.

The Doctor pulled up an empty wooden crate and sat down, propping his elbows onto his knees. Gamma rolled up beside him, tilting his eyestalk up to see through the cloudy window.

They watched the sky for a moment.

Finally, the Doctor licked his lips and looked down. "Gamma, before we go any further. . . before we meet the Daleks, and the Shezniks, and fight them both, and save the world like I usually do, I need to know one thing."

He paused, and Gamma looked at him readily.

"When did you realize you were on the wrong side? I saw your memories. The beginning is blurry. . . . All that killing, that was the raw Dalek instinct, not you." He looked at his companion. "And yet, here you are now. What changed?"

"There was. . . a bat-tle," Gamma said hesitantly. "My fi-nal fight."

* * *

 _The optic makes everything clear._

 _Debris and smoke swirls in the air, but that doesn't matter. Through the optic, lines are hardened into the shapes that matter. Life forms versus non-life forms._

 _Life-forms are the brightest – signatures of life, pulsing bright blue with every heartbeat. Whatever is non-life. . . simply doesn't matter. Not anymore._

 _Daleks show up differently, of course. They are neither life nor non-life. They are only outlines, cold and rigid in silhouette. They show no signs of life. No breathing. No blood pulses. No respiration. With Daleks, everything is internalized, hidden underneath layers and layers of metal and machinery._

 _Daleks surround Gamma now. They are on a mission. A lone planet, in the center of a flourishing star-system. The mission's purpose was clear – takeover._

 _Gamma doesn't know why – this planet's inhabitants are peaceful, simple creatures, after all – but the order hadn't been to question._ Exterminate _. That had been the order. The only order that ever mattered._

 _Two life-forms flash across Gamma's optic, a male and a female. Their eyes widen as they realize they have been spotted. The male pushes the other forward. "Aldree, run. Run!"_

" _Exterminate!" Gamma shrieks, lifting off the ground._

 _The two life-forms make chase, oxygen heaving in and out of their lungs as they run. They are two bright blue targets in Gamma's sight._

 _The female stumbles, and the male falls over her with a cry._

 _Gamma aims the gun-stick, glinting silver and beautiful and powerful. It is aimed directly for the alien's chest._

" _No! Please, no –!" The alien twists itself in front of the female. "Please. My name is Thornix. Take me. Kill me. Leave her, please. Leave Aldree."_

" _No. . . ." the girl moans, crying, clinging to the other's arm._

"You will be shown no mercy! Ex-ter-minate!" _Gamma's gun-stick swivels, aiming at the alien's chest._

 _The creature closes his eyes, a sign of resignation, and suddenly Gamma hesitates. He doesn't want to kill._

Why?

 _There is a great ripping feeling inside Gamma's soul, tearing him two separate ways. The Dalek instinct in his mind tells him one thing, and his hearts tell another._

Hearts? Daleks do not have hearts.

What if. . . .

What if I am. . . _not_ Dalek. . . ?

 _Shrieking, Gamma twists the gun-stick sharply to the left and fires into empty air. The blast goes on, whizzing harmlessly through the smoke._

 _The creature named Thornix flinches, but opens his eyes. In shock, he stares at Gamma, and Gamma stares back._

I am not Dalek.

 _As he realizes it, he also realizes he will be killed. The four words mean mutiny – they mean death._

 _Through the smoke, another figure of a Dalek appears. Leader. It's the squadron leader. Dizzy with confusion and numb with hesitation, Gamma cannot move._

 _The leader stares at Gamma. Its optic burns into his, scalding him from the inside out. That instant is when Gamma realizes – the leader knows. The leader_ has known _that he is different all along._

 _But the leader doesn't speak to scold him. It doesn't say anything except the only word that matters. "Ex-ter-minate!"_

" _No!" The male life-form whips around as the blast hits his mate, but it doesn't matter. She is dead before the scream leaves her throat._

 _Gamma watches, through the optic that makes everything so clear. He watches as the creature huddles closely over his mate, mourning her in the few seconds he has left. He watches as the squadron leader, without mercy, reaches forward with its sucker-arm and latches onto the male creature's face._

 _He watches as the creature screams soundlessly and writhes on the ground, its tail thrashing in the dirt._

 _After a moment, the creature slackens and lies still. The squadron leader pulls its sucker-arm away, turns, and glides away._

 _But Gamma's gaze is locked on the prey in horror._

 _Crumpling to the ground, the creature's blood beats stop. Its chest gives a final, gasping heave as the eyes roll closed. Slowly, the bright blue glow emanating from the chest starts to fade._

 _The life-form is now a non-life form._

 _But suddenly, the optic didn't seem to see so clearly anymore._

* * *

The Doctor was quiet for a long time, his eyes facing the stars. "And you'll always remember his name," he said finally, emotionlessly, "because you can never forget the one who changed your mind. The one who kept you from killing. The one who dragged you out from your darkest days even if they got hurt in the process."

"His name was Thor-nix," Gamma said, in a husky metallic whisper.

"Hers was Rose," said the Doctor softly.

There was a long, long silence. The clouds in the sky moved slowly, and waves lapped up against the sides of the shifting boat.

"Do you remember your name?" the Doctor asked. "Your real name, the one that made you a Time Lord."

"No." The word came out clipped. "The procedure. . . erased such memories."

A pang of pity went through the Doctor. He nodded silently.

Gamma added, "But even the Doc-tor does not share his name."

The Doctor smiled dryly, his eyes focused on something in the distance. "It would break a lot of temporal laws if my name were to be spoken out loud. I plan on saving it up for something special, like the end of the universe.

"So 'til then. . . ." He raised his eyebrows and spoke with gentle emphasis. "Just _Doctor_."

"Just Gam-ma," the Dalek replied, with equal emphasis. He paused, and added almost teasingly, "So the Doc-tor now travels with Da-leks?"

" _Well_ ," the Doctor said dramatically, tilting his head. "Granted, you might be odd company. . . ." He shook his head as he smiled. "But I'm not alone. Not anymore."

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks again for all your reviews, follows, and favorites! I appreciate each and every one. :3**


	11. The Beasts of Bermuda

**Chapter: Tenth**

 **The Beasts of Bermuda**

* * *

Gork scowled. "That ruddy thing is a _what_?"

"Dalek," the Doctor repeated patiently. "And I've told you once, I really don't feel like saying it again, Gamma's not an it, or a thing, he's a _he_. Gamma's a rare sort of Dalek. A good one."

The first mate crossed his arms. "It's got weapons."

The Doctor raised one eyebrow challengingly. "Begging your pardon, Gork, but so do you. I'll remind you that you had your rifle to my head when I first arrived here. At least Gamma has no intention to use his."

Gamma watched the exchange silently, feeling it might be better if he didn't say anything. The rest of the crew had accepted his presence fairly well, but it seemed that this man called Gork had a rocky, albeit brief, history with the Doctor.

Leave it up to the Doctor to accidentally make an enemy within a day.

"BOYS!" Cap'n's voice suddenly bellowed out into the air, loud enough to address the entire crew. The two men and Dalek turned around to see Cap'n at the bow of the ship, behind the wheel, his eyes alight. Shoving a large golden compass into his pocket, the captain grabbed a nearby rope and swung down onto the lower deck. As he strode toward their group, the Doctor saw a gleaming look in his eyes.

"Gork, mate," Cap'n said with great pleasure, slapping a hand onto his first mate's shoulder, "we're _here_."

"We're here?" the Doctor repeated, raising his eyebrows. "Where your leviathan was rumored to be?"

"Aye!" Cap'n hefted up his belt. "Smack-dab in the heart of the Bermuda Triangle! Sharp eyes, boys!" he bellowed to the rest of the crew. "He'll be 'ere somewhere!"

The whole crew turned their attention out to the water. The horizon all around them was smooth, with gently rolling waves.

There was an uneasy silence.

"So," the Doctor said slowly. His eyes traced the water all around the ship. "What exactly are we looking for?"

Cap'n hefted up his belt. "Leviathan, o'course," he said gruffly. "Oughta surface soon." He squinted up at the cloud-streaked sky, which was just beginning to turn pink at the horizon. "We're nearin' evenin' – we can wait it out. Porter, Goldeye, mind the harpoons!" he barked.

"Aye, Cap'n!"

"Aye –"

The pirates never got to obey the command.

A huge pulse punched the ship from underneath, and the _Cockatrice_ swung sharply to one side. Everyone on board was tipped off their feet and onto the deck. The Doctor cried out as he crashed into Gamma.

"The hell –?" Cap'n muttered, grunting as he picked himself off the deck.

"What was that?" one of the pirates asked, eyes wide.

"Good question," the Doctor muttered, both hearts beating quickly. "Very good question." Getting to his feet, he ran over to one side of the ship. He grabbed the railing with both hands and leaned over the side to look down at the water.

"Was the leviathan!" The Doctor could hear Cap'n shouting to the rest of the crew. "It's nudged us! Keep a sharp eye out!"

"No," the Doctor said.

"What do _you_ suggest that was, Doctor?" Cap'n shouted over. "Only a beast 'as that power!"

" _Well_. . . ." The Time Lord squinted down into the water. Large waves lapped powerfully against the sides of the boat, tipping the huge ship back and forth. The water was becoming more agitated. "I suppose it could be that, definitely, but I'm thinking it was something else. Got a few theories, but not many of them are very good –"

A column of metal suddenly shot up from the surface, only a foot away from the Doctor's head. A wave of water slapped his face, snapping his head back and throwing him backward. His shoulders slammed painfully against the wooden surface of the deck.

Soaked to the skin, panting with the quick rhythm of his hearts pounding in his chest, the Doctor watched in awe as the humongous – _ginormous_ , really – column of black metal stretched into the sky. It was wide as a car, double the height of the _Cockatrice_ 's masts, and hooked at the tip like a claw.

 _This isn't good._

He heard shouts behind him, including Gamma's voice. Shaking his ringing head, the Doctor turned over.

Two other giant metal claws had risen from the surface, identical to the first. All together, the three claws formed a triangular prison around the ship.

It was an impressive sight.

There was an equally impressive silence. Nobody made a move.

The Doctor's quick eyes scanned over the claws, trying to analyze them as best as he could. They were each made of a black metal that looked roughly-hewn. There were golden half-spheres soldered to the insides. Each claw had three hinged sections, similar to a human finger.

The pieces clicked together in the Doctor's head. His eyes darted from one claw to another as dread suddenly filled his chest. "Oh, no," he murmured.

"What?" Cap'n barked over to him. "What's wrong?"

The claws groaned heavily. It was impossible to tell what was happening at first, but after a few moments, it became clear – the claws were moving. They were folding along their hinges, inward and downward, closing over the ship.

The pirates shouted in alarm, but no one could make a move. There was no point – they were not going to escape the capture.

The claws closed over the sky, sealing off the sun, shutting out the wind. As they sealed together completely, the _Cockatrice_ was enveloped inside a vacuum of darkness.

The ship tilted right and left, forward and back, as the sloshing sound of the waves echoed against the black walls of the metal prison.

There was a loud groan from the claw's machinery, and the heavy sound of a lot of water moving.

"Whassat?" Cap'n muttered, clearly uneasy.

Gamma looked up at the ceiling. "Cap-tain!"

At his voice, everyone looked up. It was difficult to make out anything at first, but the situation dawned on everyone soon enough.

The ceiling was pressing down toward them.

The Doctor's eyes were wide in the darkness. "They're pulling us down," he said. "The Daleks are pulling us down into the ocean."

* * *

The Doctor didn't remember blacking out.

Blinking in the darkness, he lifted his head and squinted. The first thing he saw Gamma's eyestalk, glowing softly, but it was tilted to the floor. It seemed Gamma had also been knocked unconscious on the way down.

It was the only light even his dilated pupils could make out. Stumbling his way over to Gamma, the Doctor placed a hand against the cool armor. "Gamma, hey," he whispered. "Are you all right?"

The sound of his voice bounced off the metal sky above him. In the distance he could hear dripping, and echoes of sloshing water. Behind – or more like all around – the Doctor heard slight stirrings of the _Cockatrice_ crew.

"Captain!" The Doctor spun around, trying to listen, unable to triangulate the sounds with only his ears. "Captain Cap'n, are you all right? Where are you?"

Gamma's eyestalk twitched, then lifted slowly. "Doc-tor?"

"Yes!" He turned back around and gave a grin to the Dalek. "Ello there. Back in the land of the living."

"Where are we?" Gamma asked.

"Dunno. . . ." The Doctor trailed off. "Wait, shhh. Do you hear that?"

In the echoey silence that followed, there was a very light sound – a repeated sound, soft and scratchy. It sounded like sandpaper rubbing up against wood.

It was _laughter_. Scornful laughter.

"Who is it? Who's there?" the Doctor asked, his voice bellowing into echoes.

He didn't get a response.

Machinery deep within the claw's metal suddenly clicked and whirred, and the three slices of black darkness started to ease slowly away. Bright red light poured into vision. Startled, the Doctor squinted and held up a hand to shield his eyes.

"All right then, let's _see_ who you are," he muttered under his breath.

As the claws opened up, splitting open the shell of darkness, it was apparent that the _Cockatrice_ and its occupants had been moved. The cloudy blue sky had been replaced by the ceiling of a dark metal building. Dry, smoky heat poured into the expanse, making the Doctor feel uncomfortably hot and damp with seawater dripping off his clothes.

The Doctor felt his pupils contracting as he tried focusing on their new surroundings. The claws were now opened wide, and they were now in some sort of hangar bay. The room was definitely large, as it not only contained the claw but also additional machinery and some enormous metal gears that moved it.

"Come on, Gamma," he murmured to his companion. Since the ship was resting at an angle, he strode toward the lower tilt of the deck and pulled himself over the railing. Dropping to the floor, he was relieved to note that the water that had been dragged down with them had been mostly drained away, save for a few large puddles. Gamma hovered over the railing and landed beside the Doctor.

There was a silhouette of a Dalek coming toward them. It was flanked by two others, and as they came closer, the Doctor could read the Greek symbols on their armor.

Φ, Ζ, Ο.

Phi, Zeta, and Omicron.

"Omicron!" The Doctor pounced on the familiar face. "Fancy seeing you here. Remember us?"

The Dalek stared straight at the Doctor. "We have not met, Time-Lord," it growled.

 _Ah right, forgot his voice sounded like a gravelly dying motor._ "Oh really?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Don't remember these, then?" He held up his palm, showing the blood circle.

The middle Dalek, Zeta, turned to look. Its earpieces lit up as it spoke. "Shez-niks!"

There were two answering hisses.

Both the Doctor and Gamma turned to look. There were two hooded creatures coming toward them from the deck of the ship, visible due of the steep angle.

The Doctor frowned as his eyes scanned over the rest of the ship. In the bright lights, it was clear that all the pirates had vanished entirely.

"Where did they go?!" The Time Lord spun around to face the Daleks. "What did you do with them?"

"They will be kept a-live!" Zeta said.

"'Alive' is one thing," the Doctor said with a curl in his lip. "'Being tortured' is another. With you lot, I'm sure they'd rather be dead."

"They are ir-rel-e-vant!" Zeta spoke again. "The Doc-tor will follow!"

"You're Zeta?" The Doctor nodded to the Greek symbol _Ζ_ on the Dalek's chest piece. "Well, if you don't mind, I want to speak to your leader in charge. Take me to Alpha."

The Dalek's eyepieces flashed. "I am in charge!"

The Doctor did a double take, glancing back at the Dalek's symbol. " _You're_ the one in control of all this?" he said questioningly. He looked at Gamma, who stood beside him. " _That_ was your squadron leader? How come you didn't tell me it was Zeta and not Alpha?"

Before Gamma could speak, Zeta interrupted. "Cor-rect! Ex-plain relevance!"

The Doctor leaned back on his heels, eyebrows raised. "Well – I don't know. Normally the big man in charge sends out the lesser ones out to do his bidding. . . you know, underlings, inferiors, lackeys. I'm not used to meeting the leader himself right off."

"Send-ing sub-or-dinates leaves room for er-ror!" the Dalek responded.

The Doctor couldn't help but grin a _little_ bit. His head shook to one side, almost impressed. "Gotta say, you could vastly improve some modern movies." He frowned as a thought occurred to him. "The actual Alpha, then. Where's he?"

"Da-lek Alpha was weak!" Zeta said. "It was slow. Da-lek Alpha had to be ex-ter-minated!"

A chill ran up the Doctor's spine. "You killed one of your own because it was _slow_?"

"Cor-rect!" Zeta's cracked eyestalk burned brightly in the Doctor's face.

"All right." The Doctor couldn't break gaze from the cracked optic. "All right, then." He forced himself to turn away, shaking his head to clear it. "My first question." He slapped a hand up against one of the huge metal claws. He turned back to Zeta, his mouth open and ready to speak.

"The Doc-tor is our prisoner! He will not ask questions!"

"Well, that's alright. I already knew the answer anyway. Because you needed metal to build all _this_!" The Doctor raised his voice and swung in a wide circle, indicating the huge base all around them. His voice echoed around the hangar. "Don't have any workable metal this deep down underwater, though, so you have to play a little game of catch."

He turned back around and eyed Zeta. "Am I right? Ships, airplanes, they all pass overhead in the great big ocean blue. Meanwhile, you lot down here are waiting to snatch them for their metal. Slowly, your base builds up. All those planes and ships vanish mysteriously. All the while you're down here. Planted in the middle of the ocean, in a geometric shape... mind if I ask why?"

"The Doc-tor's assumptions are accurate." It was Omicron who spoke. "The Tri-angle's pur-pose was to bring the Doc-tor here."

The Doctor rubbed a palm down one side of his face. "You _are_ the reason for the Bermuda Triangle, then. Blimey. Well, the ploy worked. Always did want to know the deal behind that one. Here's the thing, though; _why_ me? Me specifically? Yeah, I know you lot have never liked me all that much, but this is a pretty extensive plan to get me just to meet."

"The Time-Lord will fol-low," Omicron said.

The Doctor didn't move. "Have anything to do with Gamma?" he asked, his voice dangerously low.

The Dalek had stood beside him, keeping silent but taking everything in. His optic had not moved from Zeta's.

Zeta trembled at the Doctor's words. "The Time-Lord parasite will be punished!" it shrieked. "It killed Gam-ma and it will be killed in return!"

"I do not fear you," Gamma grated quietly, never breaking gaze from the other Dalek. It was the first time he spoke since coming face-to-face with Zeta.

Zeta's head dome swiveled to look Gamma directly in the eye. "Time-Lords will fear Da-leks in the end," it said, its voice dropping from its usual high pitch. "Al-ways."

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you all so, so much for your patience with this chapter! I know it's been ages since I last updated, and I truly apologize for such a long delay. But I love reading all your reviews and kind words for this story! Each one keeps me going! :D**


	12. Eyewitness Account

**Chapter: Eleventh**

 **Eyewitness Account**

* * *

They were separated.

The Shezniks, Zeta, and Omicron took the Doctor, and Dalek Phi took Gamma.

There had been a brief objection – mostly from the Doctor – but ultimately, they both realized they weren't stronger than the combined forces of the Daleks and Shezniks. They couldn't fight this. Giving respectful nods to the other, Gamma and the Doctor allowed themselves to be taken away to fight their own respective battles.

The Doctor now walked silently down a narrow hallway, his mouth set in a firm line. The two Shezniks were at his sides, their tight grip keeping his arms pinned behind his back. Zeta led the group, and Omicron followed closely behind.

Down a different corridor, Gamma silently followed his own captor, Dalek Phi. Another Dalek had joined them, Dalek Rho, and it trailed closely behind Gamma.

With each second the distance between them grew, and each silently wondered what fate awaited them at the end of their respective corridors.

* * *

The Doctor's fate arrived first.

After a few minutes of walking through long, winding, stone-carved corridors, he could see a bright light. Brighter than any light source the Doctor had seen so far, it was almost like an eight-foot-tall fluorescent bulb.

As they got closer, however, it became obvious that the Daleks were not taking the Doctor to a lightbulb. Instead, the structure seemed to be a floor-to-ceiling cylinder made of thick glass, five feet wide, with a metal platform on the floor beneath it. It was lit from the inside with a soft yellowish light, casting brightness all around the otherwise dark tunnel.

There was a darkened silhouette of a person inside – definitely a human. Even though the silhouette's head was bowed, slight recognition buzzed in the Doctor's head.

He frowned, then squinted. "No. . . no, it couldn't be."

The person in the glass tube looked up, a tear glistening on her cheek. The Doctor's hearts dropped.

It was.

" _Rose_!"

He wrestled his arms free of the Shezniks holding him and raced forward as fast as he could. Coming up to Rose, he placed a hand on the glass.

She let out a quivering breath, trying not to cry, and touched the glass as well. She gave him a watery smile. "Hiya, Doctor," she whispered, her voice muffled by the thick glass.

The Doctor smiled, then slowly frowned, then smiled again. Seeing her face here, now, on this world, he wasn't quite sure if he was thrilled or uneasy. "Rose, how. . . ?" He shook his head. "How did you get here?"

A familiar hiss came from the shadows behind the Doctor, turning his blood to ice. "I found her _worlds-s-s_ away, Doctor."

The Doctor froze. "Melva," he growled, turning around.

A tall, hooded silhouette stepped out of the shadows.

The creature that met his eyes was such a far cry from the Sheznik the Doctor once knew, he was speechless. When they had last met, Melva was a stunning Sheznik – her scales a vivid, shining maroon; her eyes clever; her fangs like twin syringes filled with their deadly liquid venom.

The creature standing before him now was a broken shell of that. Large patches of Melva's scales had been flaked or scratched completely off, leaving raw red patches in their wake. Her thick tail was broken, dragging on the floor by her ankles. Her eyes, once such a brilliantly clever gold, were dry and filmy-white, blinded by insanity.

The Sheznik opened her mouth to laugh, and the Doctor saw that half of her forked tongue had been sheared off, leaving behind a thick, bloody scar.

"She said you had met before?" Rose said quietly from behind him. "I didn't remember anything about snake people – Slitheen were the most I could remember –"

"No, no, it was a different time," the Doctor said softly. "I was with. . . well, I was traveling with Martha." He couldn't stop staring at Melva as she rasped for breath, glaring at him through milky eyes. "Shezniks, their race feeds on nightmares. The friction, the activity of brain waves and adrenaline in the human mind gives them energy like food. Melva here was leading her charge all across Earth, but they started doing more than just feeding off the nightmares that were occurring naturally. They got greedy. They started _creating_ them, finding the deepest darkest fears of individual humans and turning them into nightmares. I had to put a stop to it." He paused and nodded to Melva. "And I thought I had."

"You miss-s-s-sed the part where you left me to die," Melva hissed.

"I left you to _sleep_ ," the Doctor said softly. "I took you to a planet far away from any sun so the freezing temperature would leave you alive, just in a comatose state." His eyebrows pulled together into a puzzled expression. "All the snow and ice wouldn't have done all this to you, though – all those scars, all that damage, that was something else."

"Ah," Melva purred. "And that's-s-s where the Daleks-s-s come in." She took a step back, joining the line of Daleks. "They found me, Doctor, on that planet in the ice. They rescued me, _trus-s-s-sted_ me. I was-s-s to take your companion from her world and bring her back."

Without replying, the Doctor turned around to look at Rose. "Are you all right?" he asked quietly.

"Been better." She attempted a smile.

The Doctor gave her a thin smile back before turning back around, taking in a deep breath. "The Daleks only trusted you, Melva, because they needed you. You were the only surviving member of your species, so they had no other choice."

Her eyes narrowed.

"Parallel worlds, you see. They come from the fact that at some point, somewhere, something changed. Someone chose to do something differently." The Doctor pressed the palms of his hands together to demonstrate. "The worlds are all stacked on top of each other, and as each little world makes its own little difference, they shift _just slightly_ out of alignment with each other." He rotated his palms, and his fingers moved slowly in opposite directions. "And like the tectonic plates of the earth, they cause friction. Friction of time and space. Now, the friction wouldn't hurt anything in either world – maybe an odd earthquake or two – but in between, if you could manage to slip someone into those rifts, the friction would be extreme. Deadly." The Doctor clapped his hands together and pointed at the Sheznik before him. "Except for someone like you, Melva. Your race is practically built to withstand friction. It wouldn't be pretty, but you _could_ survive."

"And I did," the Sheznik hissed. She inclined her hooded head toward Rose. "I took the human and brought her here, as the Daleks-s-s instructed."

"Why?" The Doctor's attention honed in on Zeta, who stood to the side. "Why her, why Rose?"

Zeta's cracked eyestalk rotated to look at Rose. "The hu-man will ex-plain!"

All eyes suddenly turned to Rose, who looked startled at the sudden attention. She bit a corner of her lip nervously. "Yeah, uh –" She took in a deep, quivering breath and focused on the Doctor. "Do you remember, Doctor, ages back, when I opened up the TARDIS and looked into the Time Vortex?"

"With the time energy, you used the TARDIS and destroyed the Daleks, yes," the Doctor said carefully. He shook his head. "But the TARDIS made you forget all that. The Time Vortex is too great for any being to hold for very long. I pulled it out of you, and you didn't remember anything."

Rose nodded, her eyes focusing on the floor. "Yeah, well, the Daleks made me remember again. Supposedly" – she glanced up at the Doctor again – "there was a bit left. Some sort of charged particles, deep in my head, something like that. Apparently they would have been dormant the rest of my life.

"But this – thing," she said, gesturing at the smooth glass cylinder that encased her, "it enhances those particles – sort of supercharges them so I can use that similar power again. The Daleks call it the 'Independent.' Basically, I can see into the past and the future." She faltered. "And. . . I can make changes."

"Changes," the Doctor repeated in a whisper, staring up at the huge glass machine. _This_ was how the Daleks had guided him and Gamma here. The Daleks could see every possible future, how it correlated to the past, and how to change that past to make a future they wanted.

Rose took another shaky breath. "Through me, the Daleks have been able to send you messages. Or whatever else that worked. That's. . . that's how you're here, right now."

The Doctor spoke softly. "Messages, like. . . what? Can you show me?"

Rose nodded and pressed both her hands to the inside the Independent. She closed her eyes, and images started to fill the outside of the curved glass.

There was an image of the Doctor and Gamma in the TARDIS, and suddenly the TARDIS started vanishing beneath them. The Doctor watched as he, his past self, leapt up onto the console and spun the monitor around. On the screen, he could read the very message that had started this whole adventure.

 _Your TARDIS is undamaged. I cannot move her – I only needed your attention and your trust._

So the TARDIS's mystery mover had been Rose. The Doctor frowned. The message on the Independent's screen was written in English. Hadn't the message that he had actually received been written in Gallifreyan?

"Then, you know the rest – I sent the coordinates," Rose was saying. "So that's how we – they – took you to Ixxa." She lowered her hands, and the images onscreen disappeared.

"Why Ixxa?" the Doctor asked.

Rose shrugged one shoulder. "How did you end up coming _here_?" she said softly.

"By ship, but from –" His mind clicked into place. "Teleport from Ixxa," he realized aloud.

Rose nodded.

"Ze-ta," Omicron spoke up from behind the Doctor. "The Doc-tor and the par-a-site have both been marked."

"Cor-rect!" Zeta's eyestalk swiveled toward the Doctor. "Show your hand!" it shrieked.

"Hm? Ah, yes, thank you for finally taking note. What is this, again?" The Doctor lifted his palm.

Rose's eyes widened. "Oh," she whispered.

The Doctor looked at her. "Oh?" he repeated. " _You_ know what this is?"

"The Daleks made a – a safeguard, of sorts," Rose said, staring at the circle of blood on the Doctor's hand. "They had a plan all worked out, from start to finish, all along your timeline. But they also knew something might change, so they made a mark that would tell them if anything changed."

The Doctor nodded, frowning deeply. "And I did get marked, so what changed?" he said.

She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I can't say," she mumbled.

"Om-i-cron will take the Shez-niks!" Zeta said in its high voice. "Go to Ix-xa."

Omicron nodded and rolled forward. The two Shezniks who had been holding the Doctor slipped into line behind it, dropping down to all fours as they did.

The Doctor stepped out of their way, watching with interest as they went to the left of the Independent.

There was an indentation in the rock-wall to the left of the Independent that the Doctor hadn't noticed until now. It was a small alcove, carved out to be around five feet deep. Inside the alcove was a small platform. It bore a great resemblance to the teleport on Ixxa, with the triangular-tipped pads indented in the floor and the activation buttons built into the wall. However, this one was less than a quarter of the size, as there were only three of the teleport pads.

Hearing Zeta's last order, the Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Not much of a base to go back _to_ ," he commented. "You blew it all up, remember? Ixxa's toast. Well, the base, at least, is toast. _Well_. . . ." He paused in consideration. "To be fair, given the size of the planet and the magnitude of the detonation, Ixxa probably _is_ toast."

"S-s-s-stop saying toas-s-st," Melva hissed irritatedly.

"No, Doctor, the Ixxa base is intact and running," Rose explained softly. "Four days ago, you're still on Ixxa. You and the Dalek. But up until now, August fourteenth of 3012, neither Omicron or the Shezniks have been there in months."

"How –" The Doctor frowned. "Hold on, how's that possible. . . ." He trailed off as his mind clicked the pieces together. "Ah."

Rose gave a small, resigned grin as she watched him figure it out. Giving an apologetic sort of shrug, she gestured to her glass prison. "They've got a human time machine at their disposal. I've sent messages through decades of time. What's a little adjust to a teleport?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "So _you_ controlled the teleporter as well?"

"No," Rose said quickly. "It's a normal teleport – and it uses a straight-shot generator like you said, clever you." She gave a quick smile and cleared her throat. "No, I'm just here to help jump them back in time a bit. It's like I said – you were on Ixxa a few days back, so that's where I'll send them."

"Act-i-vate!" Omicron commanded. Both the Dalek and the Shezniks pressed the activation buttons in the rock in front of them, and a deep thrumming emanated from somewhere behind the rock.

Rose took a deep breath and leaned forward to press both her hands against the glass. A silvery-gold light lit her eyes, blurring her brown irises until they were no longer visible. Light emanated from her hands as well, pooling against the glass into a semi-translucent screen.

"Days ago," the Doctor mumbled, taking a step back. His hand absentmindedly went to the circle of blood in his palm. "No, that happened – _days_ ago. . . ."

"It's happening right now," Rose said, and her voice was somehow amplified throughout the entire room. There was another tear on her cheek. "I'm sorry." She grit her teeth as the sound of the teleport increased, and Omicron and the Shezniks suddenly lit up with white energy.

Rose cried out as the two flashes of energy combined – the yellow temporal light of the Independent fusing with the generator energy of the teleport. In the split second before they did so, the Doctor could see her body arc upward, as if lightning were shooting through her spine.

Then the lights fused with a deafening _crack_ , and the Doctor had to turn away from the blinding glass. Heat and sound passed over his body like waves.

All at once, the light from the room faded until the Independent was only softly glowing once more. Blinking, the Doctor lowered his arm and turned to look at Rose. She was staring straight ahead, panting slightly. Both her hands were still connected inside of the curved glass, and her eyes were still glowing yellow.

The Doctor's gaze flicked to the left. Omicron and both Shezniks were gone. Only he, Rose, Zeta, and Melva were left in the hall.

Rose gave a slight groan, drawing the Doctor's attention back to her. She was blinking, and the light was starting to fade from her eyes until her brown irises were visible once more. Seeming to fully regain consciousness, she shook her head and yanked her hands away from the glass, breaking the connection with the Independent. As she lifted one hand to her face to rub her eyes, the Doctor could see that she was trembling.

He took a step toward her, but Zeta suddenly rolled in front of him. "The Doc-tor will fol-low!"

"Is she all right?" the Doctor asked, ignoring the Dalek.

"The hu-man is un-harmed! The Doc-tor will fol-low!"

Melva slipped behind the Doctor and placed a scaly hand on his shoulder. Since she was a female, she was far taller than the other two, and her hood was larger. "Do as Zeta s-s-says, Time Lord," she purred in his ear. "I will watch-ch your companion clos-s-sely."

"If you hurt her –" the Doctor growled, but Melva cut off his threat.

"I couldn't do that, Time Lord," she hissed, a smile curving her scaly lips. She spoke softly, mockingly. "She s-s-still needs-s to bring them _back_."

The Doctor stiffened.

 _Back. . . ._

Suddenly, he remembered why Omicron and the Shezniks had been on Ixxa in the first place. "Taryn," he mumbled aloud. "That was why they were there. Not for me, not for Gamma, just to get Taryn." He trailed off. "And they're coming back with her. _Why_?"

"The Da-leks will ex-plain!" Zeta said. Its cracked optic stared the Doctor square in the face. "The Doc-tor will follow us to the De-pend-ent!"

The Doctor frowned, feeling slightly uneasy. "The what?"

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks for reading, you awesome person! :D The adventure that the Doctor talks about with Martha and Melva was originally a different fanfiction I started to write but never finished. So instead the Doctor just blurts some exposition about that story to Rose. :)**

 **Review answers! (I'm going to start doing these because I love reading reviews and I want to talk back to you guys)**

 **MossStories:** Thank you so much for your reviews! I love knowing that people like Gamma. X) You'll have to wait for the end to see what Gamma's fate is, though. . . . ;)

 **Shadowstalker:** Your reviews are always so kind, mate. Thank you thank you! And I'm glad you liked the cover art!


	13. Hybrids

**Chapter: Twelfth**

 **Hybrids**

* * *

Gamma's path led deep, deep into the heart of the earth. Though he couldn't feel anything through the armor plating, every sensor he possessed told him that the temperature was rising drastically.

Neither Phi nor Rho had spoken a single word to Gamma yet. The group of three moved in silence.

The descending slope of the ramp leveled out into a flat hallway, and Phi took a right. Gamma followed.

Rho trailed Gamma, just a bit too closely. The Time Lord could feel its presence right behind him, watching him with a harsh blue optic, gun-stick at the ready.

And Gamma remembered now. He remembered what if felt like to be in the presence of these Daleks – he remembered his fear of them, his fear of pain, his fear of death. He did not belong with creatures such as these.

He wasn't Dalek.

And yet, when he had been traveling with the Doctor, he knew he didn't belong at the Doctor's side either. The Doctor had a. . . a _lightness_ about him, something that Gamma wasn't quite sure how to describe. It was a feeling of buoyancy, like he could keep himself afloat even in the face of the direst of dangers. The Doctor had scars, certainly, but Gamma had wounds. The horrors of his past weighed down on his conscience like the very armor that had killed so many.

So, nor was he a Gallifreyan.

Which left. . . _what_?

Nothing but a brain and two hearts, trapped in a metal cage.

Gamma was pulled sharply out of his thoughts as he realized Phi had slowed down. He quickly stopped to prevent crashing into the other Dalek and turned to follow the direction of Phi's optic.

He had been led to the open door of a cell. Just like all the walls in the narrow hallways, it looked to be roughly carved out of stone. The room was small, square, and dark.

Silently, he filed into the room.

Against the harsh light coming in from outside, Phi and Rho's silhouettes in the doorway were sharp.

Rho's earpieces lit up as it spoke. "The Time-Lord parasite will be dealt with once the Doc-tor has served his use!"

Gamma stared back at the both of them, now without fear.

"You underestimate the Doc-tor."

This time it was Phi who spoke. "And you mis-judge the power of the Da-leks."

The stone door of the cell ground slowly closed, shutting out the light and leaving Gamma in darkness.

* * *

"Oh, gorgeous!" the Doctor said without even thinking, a huge smile breaking out on his face. "Now _that_ – that is beautiful!"

He couldn't help himself. At the far end of this new room stood an enormous piece of machinery, and it certainly was beautiful. At its center was a cylindrical-shaped generator of sorts, with several metal lattice masts surrounding it for support. The most fascinating thing was that all of the machinery was encased in a thick layer of shining glass, forming one smooth, curved face. It was remarkably similar to the glass cage Rose had been kept in, and the Doctor supposed this was the 'Dependent' the Daleks had told him about.

The whole thing had to be at least one story tall, possibly even two, given the huge size of this new room.

The Doctor had been led to a separate cavern. There had been a doorway in the rock to the right of Rose's prison, and the short hallway had led to this new space. It was echoey, and roughly circular in shape. The machine – the Dependent? – at the far end of the room had a raised platform in front of it, which seemed to be connected to the machine with multiple tubes and wires.

All along the edge of the circular room were twenty more platforms, triangularly shaped, all facing inwards and toward the generator. There was a thick pipe coming from the Dependent that stemmed out into the center of the room. In the middle of the floor, a nexus of multiple other pipes joined it. Each separate pipe branched out to one of the twenty other platforms.

Still walking, the Doctor glanced over his shoulder to see if he could still see Rose in the Independent from here.

He could. She was getting much farther away now, but he could still see her silhouette from the side, and he gave a light smile.

"Move for-ward!" Zeta said from behind him.

The rounded shape of a sucker-arm prodded the Doctor in the back, and he took a hasty skip forward. "Alright, alright, no need to get all – pokey," he said defensively.

This new room was the most crowded one the Doctor had been in so far. There were at least twelve Daleks that he could count, which was difficult as they were constantly moving around the room. In addition, there were dozens of Shezniks weaving through the Daleks, looking like shiny scaled ripples in a sea of grayish gold.

"Ready the Doc-tor!" Zeta said to a nearby Sheznik. The lizard-like creature nodded once, shifting its sharp yellow gaze to the Doctor. Taking the Time Lord's elbow, it began leading him toward the generator at the back of the room.

"This is my spot, then?" the Doctor asked as they came up to it, gesturing to the circular platform.

"S-s-s-stand," the Sheznik said.

He obliged, hopping up to the platform and turning around. The Sheznik stepped partially onto the platform as well and reached for his right wrist.

The Doctor waited patiently as the Sheznik chained both his hands to the platform he stood on. The cuffs that clicked around his hands were somewhat cup-shaped, encasing his entire hand up to the wrist in solid metal. The ends of the cuffs were connected to rubber-like tubing, which fed directly into the machine behind him.

"Why are you lot working for the Daleks, eh?" the Doctor murmured to it as the Sheznik finished securing him to the platform. He nodded to indicate the Daleks shifting around behind the Sheznik. "What have they done that was so great that the last surviving members of the Sheznik race had to become their slaves?"

"Daleks-s-s are _allies-s-s_ ," the Sheznik hissed, its tongue flickering madly through the triangular gap in its lips. The creature's round yellow eyes flicked up to meet his for a moment. "The Daleks-s-s res-s-scued Mother."

"Mother?" the Doctor repeated, raising his eyebrows. "Mother – Melva's your mum?"

"Yes-s-s, and what of it, _Time Lord_?" the Sheznik spat scornfully.

The Doctor froze, realization dawning on him. "She had a whole clutch of eggs inside her when she was frozen on that planet," he whispered to himself.

The Sheznik opened its mouth and hissed, spraying particles of spit, and its large hood hummed threateningly. "Mother was-s-s not the only one condemned to death by the Doctor," it snapped. "The clutch of her unborn children was-s-s kept in the s-s-same comatose s-s-state until the Daleks-s-s rescued her."

"I didn't know," the Doctor insisted, his voice low. "I promise, I did not know she had a clutch of eggs."

"Shez-nik! Leave the Doc-tor!" a Dalek voice suddenly commanded.

The Sheznik gave the Doctor a final glare before turning and slinking away.

"So then," the Doctor said loudly to the surrounding Daleks. He shook out his arms, loudly rattling the cuffs on his wrists. "Now that I'm all decked out, what happens?"

"We wait for the oth-ers," a Dalek said.

"That what all these other platforms are for?" The Doctor glanced at all the other platforms around the room. "More Daleks? Blimey, we're gonna have a full house soon then."

"The Doc-tor will listen!" Zeta interrupted.

"Yes, _sah_!" the Doctor said, exaggerating the second word. He clicked his heels together and leaned forward. "Do tell. About time – I've been waiting for you to spill your plan-beans."

"The Doc-tor will die," the Dalek started.

The Time Lord slumped slightly and rolled his eyes as if the statement were obvious. "Well, I figured _that_. You're Daleks, I'm the Doctor. My death had to factor into your plan at one point or another. Any _particular_ reason I'm going to die this time?"

To the Doctor's disappointment, Zeta didn't even seem to register his blunt sarcasm and continued. "Look at us, Doc-tor. We have been brok-en! We are dy-ing! The death of my squad-ron is imminent!"

"And I'm sure the world will suffer all the more for it," the Doctor said dryly.

Zeta began rolling back and forth in a pacing manner. It kept its cracked eyestalk fixed on the Doctor's face even as it moved, which was very unsettling. "To pre-serve my squadron, we must be-come more than Da-lek!"

The Doctor's head turned, his eyes following Zeta's moving optic. " _More_ than Dalek?" he repeated cautiously. "What do you mean?"

"It has been a flaw of the Da-lek race since its be-gin-ning!" Zeta said. "The Da-lek race lacks the single advantage the Time-Lords alone pos-sess."

"Which would be?" the Doctor prompted, raising his eyebrows. He was honestly surprised that these Daleks would admit to the Time Lords having any sort of advantage at all.

"The a-bil-i-ty to cheat death. To heal and completely replenish every dy-ing cell of one's body!"

The Doctor frowned. "Regeneration?"

"Af-firm-a-tive! The Doc-tor will regenerate and give such power to the Da-leks!"

The Doctor stared round at the gathered Daleks, completely stunned. "You're going to bond yourselves to traits of a Time Lord?"

"It is the most log-i-cal course of action!" Zeta said, its eyestalk bobbing up and down. "In order for my squad-ron to survive, we will take on the energy to regenerate. Our new race will never die!"

"Wh. . ." The Doctor was speechless. "I've never met a Dalek who would willingly bond. . ." He shook his head. "Now I've seen it all," he muttered to himself. "First it was Daleks making themselves human – then a Time Lord in Dalek armor – now Daleks who want to become like Time Lords. What's next, a Cyberman that only wants to hug?"

"When the Doc-tor regenerates," Zeta continued, once again ignoring his words, "the energy will course into the De-pend-ent." Its head dome swiveled to indicate the dormant cylindrical machine behind the Doctor.

The Doctor had to twist around slightly to look at it, and he felt a little dizzy as he did so.

Needless to say, the Dependent seemed a little less beautiful when it was about to kill him.

Zeta continued, "The en-er-gy will then go to my squad-ron!"

The Doctor turned back around, silently taking in all of the Dalek-shaped platforms arranged around the room. _So that's what all the piping systems had been for. . . making sure all my life's energy goes to the proper spots._

 _Lovely._

Zeta's earpieces flashed with each syllable. "The Doc-tor will give his life to con-tin-ue the Da-lek race!"

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you for reading! And thanks to Son of Whitebeard for the review! ^-^**


	14. Regeneration

**Chapter: Thirteenth**

 **Regeneration**

* * *

" _Unfortunately_ for you," the Doctor said, turning to Zeta, "the power to regenerate is a conscious activity." He raised an eyebrow, challenging the Dalek. "Cos you can kill me all you like, but I can always just choose not to regenerate, thus not powering your great big machine, thus not giving _you_ lot the power to regenerate."

Zeta's earpieces flashed. "Bring the pris-on-er!"

In the hallway leading to Rose's prison, the Doctor could see a silhouette of a Dalek, framed by two Shezniks. There was a human in front of them, which the Dalek pushed forward into the cavern.

She stumbled into the light with a small cry. When she straightened up, looking at the Doctor through wide eyes, he felt his hearts slowly drop.

"Oh, Taryn," he whispered. "Taryn, _no_."

"We have re-turned," Omicron said, coming into the cavern beside Taryn. Its sucker arm extended out sharply to shove Taryn forward. "Move."

The young woman flinched away from its weapon and reluctantly began moving forward. Her arms were rigid at her sides, her hands fidgety.

As she came closer, she quickly looked up and met the Doctor's eyes. Hers were wide, terrified.

"Doctor," she whispered. "Doctor, I'm so sorry, they took me from Ixxa – the Shezniks sedated me, they took the –"

"It's all right," the Doctor said softly, realizing it had been only a few minutes since Taryn had woken from the sedation. "They took you to a teleport near your Ixxa base to bring you here. We're on Earth."

Taryn nodded, one hand absentmindedly rubbing her arm. "I know. They've – I've been brought up to speed."

The Doctor nodded too. "Do you know why they've brought you here? To me?" he asked.

She froze, keeping eye contact with him. "Do. . . you?" she asked hesitantly.

"Eeyup," the Doctor responded, punctuating the _p_ with a pop of his lips.

"You know?" There was slight relief in her voice, and she edged closer to him.

"Well, you were working on a serum that messed about with the natural process of cellular regeneration – the Daleks have just informed me that I need to regenerate in order to help them out – not exactly a thousand-piece puzzle." He gave Taryn a grim smile.

She let out her breath in a rush. "I'm sorry," she whispered. Reaching into her lab coat pocket, she pulled out a thick syringe full of green liquid.

"Termical, if I'm right," the Doctor said softly.

"Unfortunately." Taryn tried to smile. Pulling in a breath, she continued, "So, um, I guess I'll just go over everything so you know. . . so you know what to expect." She swallowed before she began. "The termical is made to speed up cellular regeneration."

"Which," the Doctor continued, nodding, "is exactly why you could first practice on something else that could regenerate." He recalled the Shezniks he had seen in Taryn's lab, and most importantly their tails. Their instantly regenerated tails.

Taryn nodded. "The cellular structure of a Sheznik's tail is different, obviously, to your Gallifreyan regeneration. But – I was told – it was similar enough to yours to make a serum based on the Sheznik testing."

Taryn's voice turned low, serious. "Once I inject this" – she held up the syringe in her hands – "your body will automatically start regenerating itself. Doesn't matter if you're not mortally wounded, doesn't matter if you're dying – you just won't be able to stop the regeneration even if you try to."

"Fantastic," the Doctor muttered with irony.

"You were actually supposed to have taken this in already, through your respiratory system," she said, stepping closer to him. "When I – when you were inside the vent system on Ixxa, that gas was aerosolized termical. It should have been in your system by now, but, um." She gave him a quick smile. "You were a little too clever and got away before you should have."

"That's what changed in my timeline," the Doctor murmured in realization.

Taryn's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "Sorry, what?"

The Doctor sucked in a large breath and shook his head to clear it. "Nothing. Nothing. So what was the aerosolized termical supposed to do back then? It still took me a while to get all the way here."

"Well, the aerosolized version was a much more diluted solution. So it should have been amassing in your respiratory system all this time, and slowly infecting all the rest of your body along with it. Now – well, I'm afraid it's going to be a bit more concentrated."

Taryn glanced furtively at Omicron, who had come up beside her. "When should I. . . inject this?" she asked.

"I think we're still waiting on a few more to join the party," the Doctor answered for her, but before he could even finish speaking, two Daleks filed into the room. The plates on their armor read Ρ, Rho, and Φ, Phi. The two missing Daleks. "Well, isn't that just wonderful timing," he muttered.

"Da-leks! Take your pla-ces!" Zeta commanded to all the Daleks, and immediately they all started moving. Each one must have had their own preassigned platform, given how quickly and how smoothly each one moved in place.

Zeta, too, moved into its place. It was one of the two platforms situated right beside the Doctor's. Omicron stood on the other side of the Doctor.

"The hu-man will in-ject the serum!" Zeta ordered next, its eyestalk swiveling to look at Taryn. "We will begin the regeneration."

"Right then, here we go," the Doctor muttered, eyeing Taryn warily.

Taryn avoided his eyes as she slowly stepped up onto the platform.

"I need you to tilt your head a little, okay?" She carefully raised the syringe up to his neck. "I'm sorry, this is going to feel really cold," she stuttered. "I'm really, really sorry – about everything."

"I don't blame you," the Doctor said. "Not for this."

Taryn hesitated, the pointed tip of the needle hovering millimeters away from a pulsing vein in his neck. "Well," she murmured back, "I'm sorry anyway."

She pushed down the plunger, and the serum slid into his bloodstream.

Almost instantly, the Doctor's skin prickled. Chills skittered over his body, and one quick heartbeat later, he could _feel_ the cold traveling all throughout him, flowing down to his fingers, tingling his toes, making his head feel dizzy. He hissed in a breath through his teeth and clenched his hands into fists.

Shezniks grabbed Taryn and wrestled her away, out of the Doctor's line of vision.

It didn't matter. His vision was starting to blur anyway. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head as the pain suddenly pulsed into his skull.

"Re-generate! Re-generate! RE-GENERATE!"

All the gathered Daleks were chanting the word, saying it over and over like a mantra. Their earpieces lit up with every syllable, shining hot light onto the cavern walls. The Doctor could feel his heartbeats quickening. _I can't believe I'm hearing this from Daleks,_ he thought wildly.

There came that feeling, that all-too-familiar feeling, that the Doctor had felt nine times before in his life. Where his head felt dizzy and his chest was buzzing and his fingertips were starting to feel ever-so-slightly like not _his_ fingertips.

He could feel sweat on his face. He could see the cold blue light of Dalek optics surrounding him. He could hear the Daleks chanting in their screeching voices. He could feel his blood pounding in his ears and in his chest and in his wrists.

Yet somehow, he couldn't believe that this was how his journey was going to end.

The Doctor's head snapped back as his vision blurred into yellow regeneration fire.

* * *

 **A/N: As always, thank you for reading! Huge thanks to everybody following this story, favoriting, and reviewing. You truly make this author one happy girl. 3 I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! (Even while the Doctor is dying. . . .) ;D**


	15. Every Rose Has Her Thorns

**Chapter: Fourteenth**

 **Every Rose Has Her Thorns**

* * *

The Doctor was screaming.

With his head snapped back and both arms splayed out into the air, regeneration fire raced along his skin, burning him alive. Golden light flared out from his head and wrists, which was funneling swiftly into the metal cuffs that held him.

The light was visibly speeding through the tubes connected to the cuffs, leading back to the Dependent where it would spread to each Dalek's platform. Every one of the twenty Daleks stood ready and waiting

But the light stopped just before it could enter the Dependent.

The machine remained dark.

It was becoming apparent that something was going badly wrong. The machinery deep within the Dependent started to groan and rattle, throwing echoes all around the rocky walls. With a huge bellow, a crack streaked across its thick glass shell.

"What is hap-pen-ing?" one of the Daleks shrieked.

The Dependent gave a huge heave. Rather than trying to enter into the Dependent, the yellow light brimming at the ends of the tubing instead reversed its direction. Regeneration energy poured backwards through the tubes and back into the Doctor's body, restoring everything that had been lost in the partial regeneration.

"A-bort!" Zeta ordered. The Dalek rolled off its platform and swiveled its head around to look at its second-in-command. "Omicron! Ex-plain!"

Omicron's head dome was turned toward the other room. "It is the fe-male!" it growled.

Across the cavernous room in which the Dependent stood, the glass prison of the Independent was alight, and Rose burned in the center of the brightness.

"You made me change the Doctor's reality," Rose said in a dangerously low voice, her voice throbbing all around the room like a speaker at full volume. "I can change your realities too." Her eyes narrowed.

The Dependent let out a noise that was between a shriek and a bellow. Two more thick silvery cracks streaked across the face of the Dependent, splitting it further apart.

"Stop her!" Zeta shrieked.

Melva, who stood beside the Independent, leapt inside and shoved Rose off her seat to the ground.

Rose screamed as her hands broke away from the glass. As the connection was broken, lightning-hot pain streaked up her forearms, burning her skin from the inside. She hit the ground of her prison with a cry of pain.

With Rose's connection to the Independent broken, the Dependent started powering down immediately. The heavy, groaning noise chugged slowly into silence.

The Doctor slumped to his knees. With his head hanging on his chest, he still appeared to be unconscious, but his arms were held up above his head by the cuffs on his hands.

His skin continued to glow a faint golden yellow. The regeneration process had been interrupted halfway through, and his body wasn't sure whether to continue the process or try to reverse it.

There was a short silence.

Zeta seemed to be ignoring the Doctor for the moment. With its optic trained on Rose, the Dalek rolled towards her, the whirring of its armor sounding loud in the quiet room.

"Time to face cons-s-sequences, child," Melva hissed in Rose's ear. The Sheznik grabbed Rose's arm and half-lifted, half-dragged Rose out of the Independent.

Rose gave a silent grimace at the strong grip on her bruised arm as she scrambled for her footing. Her brain felt hot and dizzy, and it was hard to think.

Rose blinked rapidly, trying to see the silhouette of a Dalek rolling closer to her.

"You halt-ed the re-generation!" Zeta said.

"Well, yeah," Rose said. "That was the basic plan."

Zeta advanced closer, forcing Rose to take a quick step backwards against the rock wall. With its cracked optic mere inches away from Rose's face, the Dalek spoke slowly. "What did you do?"

Rose was shivering slightly, still feeling the aftershocks of pain in her arms. She took a deep breath. "Went all the way back," she said, "through your timeline, when you were first building that stupid machine. I changed some stuff around. Added in some design flaws, messed about a bit with the construction of the thing. Good luck with those receiver ports, I mucked them up the most." She smiled grimly at the Dalek. "You're the ones who handed me the keys to time. Thought I may as well take it for a spin."

Zeta pulled away.

"Da-leks will not give up."

Still staring at the Dalek, Rose shook her head from side to side. "Don't matter," she said softly, "cos all the Doctor needed was a bit more time, and I just gave that to him. He'll figure it out. You watch."

Without moving its head, Zeta spoke to the Shezniks in the other cavern. "Damage re-port!"

"The Doctor is-s-s alive," a Sheznik responded.

"Then he can still die!" Zeta said. The Dalek finally turned, switching its focus to the Doctor.

"Good luck," Rose muttered to the back of the Dalek.

Zeta's eyestalk swiveled around to look at her.

"Take her to the pris-ons."

* * *

The two Shezniks shoved Rose into the cell.

She stumbled inside, her shoes scuffing against the rough rock underfoot. She immediately whirled around to face the open doorway, but the thick rock door was already grinding shut, sealing off the sliver of light from outside.

"Don't you dare, you overgrown lizards!" Rose shouted angrily, running up to the door. Her body rammed uselessly against the door as it sealed completely shut.

"Don't you dare," she whispered again in the silence. She could feel tears prickling the back of her eyes, making her voice catch in her throat.

Letting out a cry of frustration, she pulled away and pounded on the door. As her fist connected with the rock, shock jarred her arm all the way up to the shoulder.

The pain was unbelievable. Rose gasped so loudly it echoed around the cell and doubled over. She hadn't been expecting that much pain, but then she remembered how her hands had been burned as they were torn away from the Independent.

Shivering, she let herself slowly down to the floor, sliding down the rocky wall. Her one hand was massaging the hurting wrist in small rotating motions, trying to ebb away the pain ringing in her bones.

She glanced absentmindedly down at her hands, wishing she could see how badly they had been hurt.

With surprise, Rose realized she _could_ see her hands. It had been hard to tell before, but now that her eyes had adjusted she could see the prison cell was actually lit inside. The light was soft blue and dim, making Rose feel like she was in a dream.

It was hard to tell how large the cell was, though, and she was in too much pain to get up and find out. Taking a deep breath, Rose dragged both hands through her hair until she felt her scalp sting. She pressed her head against the warm rock and closed her eyes.

The image of the Doctor filled the inside of her eyelids like a bad dream. She could see him, limbs splayed, head thrown back. He was regenerating and dying at the same time.

Rose felt tears on her cheeks. "Sorry, Doctor," she whispered to herself. "I did my best. Hope it was enough."

She swiped away the last few tears from her cheeks, took a deep breath, and straightened her shoulders. She had done all she rested her head against the uneven rock wall behind her and closed her eyes.

Something clattered in the darkness in front of her.

Rose's eyes flew open, and she jolted to her feet in surprise. She came nearly face-to-face with a glowing blue circle, burning through the darkness of the cell like a torch.

It was an optic, staring straight at her. A Dalek.

Rose gasped and scuttled back against the wall, flattening herself against the rough rock as best as she could.

Her eyes widened as she figured it out. Of course – she had served her use for the Daleks, so why would they bother keeping her alive? They sent her here to die.

 _Okay. Right._ Rose licked her lips and pulled in a trembling breath. _If I'm going to die, might as well die bravely._

"Gonna kill me, then?" she said loudly. "Gonna. . . gonna shoot me, well go on! Get it over with!" Her heart was pounding so hard it was making her voice quiver.

The blue circle grew larger, and the shape of the Dalek melted into the light. It was just as battle-damaged as the rest of the Daleks Rose had seen – gray, dull, broken. Its sucker-arm hung at an unnatural angle.

"Blimey, you look like hell," Rose murmured.

Both the Dalek's sucker-arm and gun-stick twitched slightly back and forth, as if it was deciding what would be the best way to kill, and Rose tensed. She had seen them murder with both weapons, so she knew that either would get the job done. She turned her head away and squeezed her eyes shut.

The two lightbulb-earpieces on the Dalek's head lit up as it spoke, blinding Rose with a flash of white light. She flinched as its grating voice sounded in her ears. That was always the final sound before they killed their victim. She waited for the blast of energy to hit her, waited to die, but suddenly realized that the Dalek hadn't said _Exterminate_.

"-ler?" the Dalek was saying.

She opened one eye. Blinked. Turned her head, just slightly.

"What," she said quietly. "What did you just say to me?"

"Rose Tyyyler," the Dalek said slowly, then continued saying "Rose Ty-ler! Rose Ty-ler!" with increasing fervency.

"Stop. Stop. Wait," Rose said, feeling her heart pounding in her throat. "You know my name?" She squinted at the Dalek. "Who are you?"

The Dalek looked straight into her eyes. "I am a friend of the Doc-tor."

"Yeah, right," Rose said with a humorless, disbelieving smile. "The Doctor would never be friends with a _Dalek_ , not in a million years!"

The Dalek continued to stare at her. "I am not Da-lek," it said, very slowly. "My. Name. Is. Gam-ma."

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks to Son of Whitebeard and Shadowstalker for your reviews! As always thanks to all you wonderful readers following this story. I hope you guys had an awesome Thanksgiving and have a Merry Christmas!**


	16. Enemy of Thy Enemy

**Chapter: Fifteenth**

 **Enemy of Thy Enemy**

* * *

Melva watched through her milky eyes as two Shezniks dragged Rose away, down to the deeper levels of the prisons. Giving a thoughtful, rhythmic churr in the back of her throat, she turned her attention to the main cavern containing the Independent. She limped into the cavern, her broken tail tracing a jagged line in the sand behind her.

Everything was oddly quiet now. With the Doctor still unconscious and the Independent powered down, the only sounds were the Daleks whirring restlessly about the room.

There was another noise, too. Melva's hood spread wide, adjusting the large membranes leading into her sensitive ears. With her sight mostly gone, the Sheznik found she now depended largely on her sense of hearing.

She heard a female voice, speaking in rapid tones. She recognized the sound as the human that the Daleks had taken from Saturn. Tilting her head one way, then the other, she could see through her good eye that the human female was speaking to Zeta.

Giving an interested churr in the back of her throat, Melva moved closer.

"It should have worked," Taryn was saying desperately. Melva snorted, flaring her slitted nostrils.

Taryn glanced briefly at the Sheznik but turned her desperate eyes back to Zeta. "My serum worked just like you wanted it to. It was only because the Doctor's friend changed the machine. He did regenerate, but because all the energy flow was reversed, he took it all back in, and it worked the opposite way."

"Si-lence!" Zeta said.

Taryn stopped short, gulping nervously.

Zeta's optic was only a few feet away from Taryn's eyes. "You are no long-er necessary!"

As Taryn flinched away and Zeta readied its gun-stick, Melva stepped in.

"Zeta," she started, "why exterminate this human? My children could eas-s-sily put her away in the pris-s-sons where they could. . . hmm, feed on her nightmares."

After a long moment Zeta nodded its optic. "Pro-ceed."

Taryn flinched, but she knew she couldn't run away. She stood rooted to the spot, feeling panic slowly rise in her throat.

Melva purred with pleasure. She turned her hooded head to the other Shezniks swarming around the cavern.

"Children!" she said loudly. Instantly, nearly a dozen pairs of eyes turned her way, each hood spread wide and alert.

Melva gestured to Taryn. "Take away this-s-s human child and leave us-s-s."

The brood of Shezniks slipped closer, interest shining in their slitted eyes. They came forward in a large mass and swarmed around Taryn.

"They will not kill you, child," Melva said. Taryn wondered if the Sheznik was supposed to sound reassuring.

"I know how your species works," Taryn murmured, quiet with fear. She couldn't look up to meet Melva's eyes.

The Shezniks swarmed out of the cavern, with Taryn in the center of the group.

The stone room fell into silence once more.

"She will have s-s-so very many nightmares to dream," Melva said in satisfaction, watching as they left. Her children would keep themselves warm with the friction for a while yet.

Zeta, too, was looking out at the entrance of the cavern, but his eyestalk was focused on the empty Independent instead.

"The Doctor's as-so-ci-ate is no longer necessary," Zeta said slowly.

"The one called Ros-s-se?" Melva's tongue slithered in and out of the gap in her lips. "But she s-s-served her us-s-se well, did she not?" she purred in satisfaction.

Zeta did not answer as it swung its eyestalk around to face her. "You are no longer necessary."

Melva stopped. "Watch-ch your tongue, Dalek," she hissed angrily, taking a step back. "Do not forget I am the one who brought the human child to you."

"And she is no long-er necessary! You are no long-er necessary!" Zeta repeated, trembling slightly.

"I am your ally, Z-z-zeta," Melva hissed more fiercely. There was a tiny flicker of desperation in her eyes as she glanced down at the Dalek's gun-stick. "My children need their mother," she said softly, a last attempt.

Zeta's earpieces lit up. "Ex-terminate!"

Melva shrieked as the blast hit her. Her head was thrown back, her skeleton pulsing a dark black as she burned alive.

Within a second, Melva was dead. Her lifeless body fell to the floor in a scaly heap, smoking slightly.

Zeta turned away to continue working, feeling no pain, no remorse, and no satisfaction. The kill had been necessary, and now it was done.

What the Dalek didn't see was the hooded, scaly shape that had witnessed the execution. The shadowed form slipped away from the entrance of the cavern, trembling with shock and anger.

* * *

"Have you been in-jured?" Gamma asked.

"What?" Rose was somewhat caught off-guard by the question. "Oh. I'm alright, thanks." She shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, I'm just not used to a Dalek asking me that."

"I un-der-stand."

Rose gave a little smile. She was sitting on the rock floor, her arms resting on top of her knees. Gamma stood a respectable distance away, patiently answering all her questions and asking some of his own.

Rose cleared her throat and leaned forward. "So when'd you meet him, the Doctor?"

"It has been. . . ." Gamma trailed off for a moment as if in thought. "Only a few days."

Rose gave a smile. "Changes you, though, doesn't it. A minute with the Doctor feels like a lifetime."

Gamma nodded.

Rose found she was staring out into air. "I was nineteen when I first met him," she said softly. "It was only a couple years I traveled with him, but. . . ." She bit a corner of her lip and narrowed her eyes in thought. "Feels like I've lived my whole life already."

The cell door suddenly ground open. Rose shot to her feet and spun around, her heart starting to pound as she faced the open door.

A group of Shezniks stood in the doorway. The Sheznik in front stepped forward, and Rose stepped back.

"The Daleks-s-s," the Sheznik panted, "are traitors-s-s. The Daleks-s-s de-s-serve to die."

Rose and Gamma looked at each other uneasily.

"The one called Z-z-zeta," it continued between heavy breaths, "has-s-s. . . has-s murdered our mother." Its voice cracked with the last word.

Even though Melva had been the whole reason Rose got dragged into all this, she felt twinge of sympathy for the anguished creature in front of her. "I'm sorry," she managed to say.

"It is-s-s only the fault of the Dalek." The lizard-like creature moved forward another few paces. It stood at least six feet tall at the shoulder alone, and its head towered over Rose's. Up-close, she realized its hooded scaly eyes were a pink-red and swollen. She was surprised. She never thought she would see a lizard cry.

"We will free you," it hissed, "if you will help us-s-s kill the Dalek traitor."

Rose clenched her jaw. She would never promise to kill, even if it was a Dalek in question. "Take us to the Doctor," she said slowly, "and he can figure out how to help you."

Blinking rapidly, the Sheznik nodded. "Deal, human," it hissed softly. Its eyes glittered. "Let us-s-s _revolt_."

* * *

 **A/N: Your humble author thanks you for reading! Given that we're almost a month into the new year, it's probably far too late to say this, but I'll say it anyway – I hope you all had a great New Year's Eve! My family and I stayed up until 1 a.m. playing board games and eating ice cream.**

 **Thank you to MossStories for the review. :D Next chapter, the Doctor will actually be conscious and speaking, I promise!**


	17. Informed Sacrifice

**Chapter: Sixteenth**

 **Informed Sacrifice**

* * *

The Doctor dreamt of custard.

Smooth. . . creamy. . . sugary. . . .

He couldn't place exactly why. But when he tried to think about it, the train of thought slid away just as swiftly as the dream, and he forgot both entirely.

The transition from sleep to consciousness was seamless. The Doctor's eyes were open for at least a minute before he realized he was actually awake.

The Doctor blinked blearily. His eyelids felt like they were glued together, but everything was slowly coming into focus again.

He blinked again and tried opening his mouth.

 _Ah bugger my tongue's gone_ , was his first thought. He slowly worked his lips back and forth. _Oh wait hold on. . . no. Still there. Thank Gallifrey. Can still lick things._

He lifted his heavy, stuffy head.

The first thing to come into focus was a moving shape, blurry and brown and right in front of his eyes.

Well, it _seemed_ like it was right in front of his eyes, anyway. Depth perception kicked in after a moment, and he realized the shape was further away than he'd thought. Dalek. It was a Dalek.

He rolled a dry tongue over his dry lips. "Ello," he croaked.

The Dalek looked at him, its optic bright. "The Doc-tor is awake!" it announced, turning its head to something outside of the Doctor's vision.

 _Awake?_ The Doctor frowned. _What's that supposed to mean?_

He realized only then that he was still alive.

With that thought, he turned his attention to his body. He found that he was slumped halfway onto his knees, with his upper body being held upright by the two cuffs on his hands. He clenched and unclenched his fingers inside the cuffs, rotated his wrists, and shrugged his shoulders. Everything seemed to be in working order. He took a deep breath to stretch out his lungs, rolled his head on his shoulders, wiggled his toes inside each plimsoll. Final conclusion: he was stiff, but alive.

And he was the _same_. He hadn't regenerated.

As the Time Lord stood painfully to his feet, he twisted around to look behind him.

The Dependent hadn't changed at all, either. It remained tall, cold, and lifeless.

The Doctor turned back to the Dalek he had first seen. His brain still felt fuzzy, and he wanted to know what was happening. "Oi. You. Dalek," he said, trying to get its attention. "Mind telling me what's going on?"

The Dalek didn't even turn to him. Its eyestalk was aimed somewhere else, and the Doctor turned to see what it was looking at.

Zeta came into view, and the Doctor's attention shifted. "You. Right. Leader Dalek. Ello. I think I was supposed to be dead right about now. What happened?"

"Var-i-ables have been re-moved!" Zeta said in reply.

The Doctor frowned and narrowed his eyes at the Dalek. He was wide-awake now, but he still felt pretty out of it. "How'd you mean, _variables_?"

"It is of no im-por-tance!" Zeta said.

"Aw, go on, be a pal. Tell me what stopped me from dying. I think I'd like to give it a hug." The Doctor's eyes followed the Dalek as it circled around to the back of him, but something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.

Rose's prison, the Independent sitting across the room, was empty. She was gone.

"Rose," the Doctor said aloud. His head whipped around to look at the Dalek, his voice rising. "Where's Rose? What have you done with her?"

Zeta paused for a moment before responding. "She is ir-rel-e-vant!"

" _Hah_!" the Doctor shouted suddenly, making his voice bounce off the cavern walls. Zeta looked sharply back at the Doctor, who raised his eyebrows. "That's what changed, isn't it? Rose mucked something up with your perfect little plan. She stopped me from regenerating. Oh, she's good. Good ol' Rose." He was grinning from ear to ear.

* * *

"I think I've got a plan," Rose said slowly.

All eyes turned to her. Their group – Shezniks, Gamma, and Rose herself – were making their way back to the main cavern. The Shezniks were both leading and tailing the group, but now they paused and clustered closer to Rose to hear.

She looked at Gamma. "You know how I told you how I did something to the Dependent, I. . . changed something about the inner workings of it?"

Gamma nodded once.

Rose took a deep breath. "I think I know what I changed."

"S-s-speak your plan," a Sheznik hissed, not impatiently.

When Rose spoke the hesitation was clear in her voice. "Gamma, unfortunately. . . this plan involves you."

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you for reading! I know this chapter was a short one, but I have good news – the next chapter will be posted next Saturday! Be here to see what happens next. :D And as always, thanks to everyone who followed/favorited/reviewed!**


	18. Tyoden

**Chapter: Seventeenth**

 **Tyoden**

* * *

"The Doc-tor's as-so-ci-ate has been re-moved!" Zeta said, its eyestalk twitching slightly back and forth. "The plan can now pro-ceed!" Zeta turned to another Dalek. "Pre-pare the serum!"

The Doctor smiled. "Still sticking with Taryn's magical serum, are we?"

Zeta stared at him for a moment before it spoke. "The Doc-tor will re-generate–"

"Oh, knock it off, you thick tin can," the Doctor said suddenly, cutting through the Dalek's dramatics. "You think I haven't got it all figured out now?" He raised his eyebrows. "Hm? Rose knew what she was doing. She knows a bit more than you do, apparently, about how I work. Everything generally gets sorted out by the end. I just needed a bit more time this time around. And that's exactly what she's given me."

Several optics turned to him, and the Doctor suddenly had the grand, familiar feeling that he had center stage.

"Ex-plain!" Zeta said, a touch of impatience in the word.

 _Gladly_. "Before, with my first experience to your new miracle drug, yeah, I was powerless. But now, ooh, _now_ you've got a mighty contender to battle it," the Doctor said. "Because, you see, even a partial regeneration has some of the same aftereffects of a true one. All the cells in my body right now have just come back from the brink of death, and they want to know what almost killed them. And because they're still squishy, still learning, still adapting, they're learning exactly how to counterattack whatever it was." He grinned widely. "Brilliant defense mechanism, a Time Lord's body."

Zeta's optic lowered an inch or two from the Doctor's face. Past the cracked glass, the Doctor could almost see the Kaled inside, see it thinking. He had convinced it, certainly, but now the Dalek was considering how else to kill him.

While the cavern was silent, the Doctor figured he may as well chat. He rocked back on his heels as he spoke. "Of course, you could just try the good old-fashioned way of exterminating, like you like doing so much. But there's a little problem, isn't there? I could probably absorb that. Who knows, this early after a partial regeneration." He was flat-out enjoying himself now. "Probably safer to wait, on your part, until I'm back to normal. But by the time I've recovered, least enough to exterminate me properly, I probably would have come up with some other clever plan to get out anyway."

Zeta's optic shifted back up to the Doctor's face again, seeming to have come to a conclusion. "Then we will ex-terminate the Doc-tor again and again in swift suc-ces-sion!"

"How'd you mean, _in swift succes_ – Oh, hold on. I see." The Doctor frowned. "Shoot me once, then while I'm absorbing that, hit me again? Well. I suppose you could do that, yeah. But if –" He stopped himself, and thought some more. It was his turn to think it over, and he didn't like the conclusion that he came to. "No, yeah. That would probably work. Unfortunately."

"Form po-si-tion!" Zeta said, and immediately all the gathered Daleks clustered around the platform in a tight circle. Twenty gun-sticks took aim.

The Doctor braced himself.

All the gathered Daleks spoke as one, forty earpieces alighting with the same scream.

"EX-TER-MI–"

Before they could finish, a single Dalek voice sounded into the air, and it wasn't joining in on the order to kill.

"No."

All the Daleks froze. Slowly, Zeta turned its head dome around. For once, its voice sounded dark, deliberate. "The Time-Lord par-a-site has es-caped."

Gamma stood in the entrance to the cavern, and Rose stood beside him.

"Ex-terminate them!" Zeta shrieked, and the Daleks turned toward the two in the entrance.

"Rose –!" the Doctor said.

"No!" Gamma said again, forcefully. He rolled forward, straight up to Zeta.

Zeta's cracked optic twitched back and forth as the Time Lord came closer. "Shez-niks! Where are the Shez-niks?"

Scores of the lizardlike creatures poured into the room from the entrance. In each pair of slitted eyes glittered a deep hatred, and every Sheznik's attention was fixed on Zeta.

"Re-strain the prisoner!" Zeta commanded them.

Without hesitation, one Sheznik strode forward to the Daleks. However, instead of obeying the Dalek's order, it stopped and stood beside Gamma. Turning its hooded head to its former master, the Sheznik glared at Zeta.

It hissed one word.

" _Murderer_."

Zeta rolled away a step or two. "This is mu-ti-ny!" it shrieked.

The Sheznik smiled darkly in response, revealing its poison-filled fangs.

Gamma left them and rolled up to the Doctor's platform. "Doc-tor," he greeted the Time Lord.

"Gamma," the Doctor replied politely, unable to keep a large grin off his face. "I see you've been busy."

Two Shezniks came up to the Doctor's platform and started freeing him from the restraints.

"Oh," the Doctor said in surprise. "Ta." He tried not to give them odd looks, given that they seemed to now be on their side, but he couldn't help thinking that less than an hour ago he had been getting strapped into the very same restraints by the very same creatures.

Ah, well. _C'est la vie._

Or, in the Doctor's case, _La vie comme d'habitude._

The cuffs fell away, and the Doctor hopped off the platform, shaking out his wrists. "Let's see what to do about these Daleks, ey?" he muttered.

"Doctor!" Rose ran up to him, grinning with relief.

"Ello!" The Doctor scooped her up into a tight hug. He heard her laughing in his ear as she hugged him back.

"Struck a deal with the lizards, then?" he asked as he pulled away, keeping his voice low enough so the Shezniks couldn't hear.

"More like" – Rose cocked her head to one side – "went along with their plan."

"Right." The Doctor paused. "Given the whole –" he nodded over to Zeta "– murdered- mum thing, I'm guessing it has something to do with killing Zeta?"

"Something like that, yeah. Thought you might want to tweak it."

"Probably best to make sure there's no _killing_ ," the Doctor said with emphasis.

Rose opened her mouth to respond, but she hesitated. Her eyes flicked briefly over to something behind him.

Frowning, the Doctor turned around to see what she was looking at. He froze.

Gamma had taken the Doctor's place on the platform. Shezniks surrounded him, attaching the same cuffs the Doctor had worn onto Gamma's armor.

The Doctor frowned. "What are you doing? Gamma?"

The Shezniks slipped away from the platform.

"Hey. _Hey_!" the Doctor barked. His eyes darted between the Shezniks and Gamma. "What are you doing?"

"Doc-tor," Gamma said, "I can re-gen-er-ate."

The Doctor suddenly had a bad feeling, a very, _very_ bad panicky feeling, rising in his throat. "What do you mean?" His voice was low.

"I – can – re-gen-er-ate!" the Dalek repeated.

"No. No. _No_!" the Doctor snapped. He lunged forward, toward the platform.

Strong hands gripped his arms from behind, and he was yanked backwards. Letting out a cry of surprise, the Doctor twisted around.

Two Shezniks were behind him, holding both his arms in their characteristic viselike grip. The Doctor's eyes widened. "Let. Go," he said, and his voice was suddenly deathly quiet. "Let me go to him."

Neither of the Shezniks looked at him, but they didn't budge, either.

Frustration welled up in the Doctor's chest. "Rose!" He whipped his head around to look at his companion, and he froze.

She stood a few feet away, head bowed, arms hugging her chest.

A bad feeling stirred in his chest. "Rose, look at me."

She shook her head once before looking up. Her eyes were red, her cheeks wet. "Sorry, Doctor," she whispered. " _This_ was the plan."

"No," the Doctor whispered. _Please, no._

"Da-leks," came Zeta's voice, "take your place-s!"

The Doctor didn't even react as the Daleks moved around him. He was pinned in place anyway. Helpless. Useless. He kept his gaze locked on Gamma instead, and tried again.

"Gamma," he began quietly, "this is not worth dying for. These Daleks –"

"You," Gamma interrupted.

The Doctor broke off. "What?"

The bright blue optic stayed fixed on the Doctor's face. "You are worth dy-ing for, Doc-tor."

"No." The Time Lord gave a humorless chuckle as he shook his head. "No, no, you don't get to _decide_ that." His voice turned bitter. "You don't get to choose death."

"Some-one has to die."

"No one ever _has_ to die," the Doctor spat. His throat was tight, and he spoke through clenched teeth. " _Never_."

"Doc-tor," Gamma said, almost softly, "we can-not win."

With a sinking feeling, the Doctor knew that Gamma was right. He didn't have to look around to know they were severely outgunned. The Shezniks outnumbered the Daleks four to one, certainly, but sheer number would be useless against the deadly gun-sticks opposing them.

"I don't care," the Doctor said, and he realized that he meant it. "This is suicide. Get off there right now."

"This is not su-i-cide!" Gamma said. "This is sac-ri-fice!"

"Well, around me they're the same thing!" the Doctor shouted, his voice echoing off the rock walls. He shook his head and looked away, hissing breath through his teeth. "All of them," he muttered, "every time, at one point or another, they all sacrifice themselves for _me_."

Rose bit her lip and looked away.

The Doctor met Gamma's eye. "Not this time," he said in a hoarse whisper. "Don't you dare."

"I am a sol-dier," the Time Lord responded slowly. "I was trained to die."

"But you didn't, did you?" the Doctor said lightly. "You _lived_ , and you lived for a reason. No one's alive by accident."

"I have made my choice, Doc-tor."

"Gamma, it will take more than just your life. It will take _all_ of them," the Doctor said softly. "Suck up every last regeneration you've got left. You're not going to come out of this alive."

Gamma's eyestalk was fixed steadily on the Doctor. "Then I will die with hon-or."

"If you die. . . ." The Doctor voice faltered. "Gamma, if you die, I'm gonna be the only one left."

There was a long silence before Gamma responded. "I have been Da-lek too long," he said slowly. He turned around to look up at the Dependent, ever so much taller than he was. "It is time to go."

"The Time-Lord par-a-site will re-generate!" Zeta shrieked from its platform.

The Daleks joined in, their voices rising.

"Re-generate!"

"Re-generate!"

"Don't!" shouted the Doctor desperately, twisting against the Shezniks' grip. It was a futile attempt and he knew it.

Gamma's eyestalk turned until he was looking at the Doctor. "Ty-o-den," he grated slowly.

The Doctor, panting, scrunched his eyebrows together. "What? Tyoden?"

"You – asked me – my name," Gamma said haltingly. "My name was Tyoden."

The Doctor's mouth opened slowly in shock. "Tyoden." He whispered the Time Lord's real name for the first time. _Tyoden_.

"And I – am – Da-lek," Tyoden shrieked, "NO – MORE!" The Dalek – the Time Lord – moved its gun-stick.

"EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

He fired.

The blast ricocheted off Gamma's reflection in the smooth glass of the Dependent and hit reality.

It happened like a gunshot. With a fizzling, screaming sound, the energy slammed into Gamma, and the Dalek's body alit with a harsh green-white light.

For a brief moment, Gamma's brain and two hearts became visible, pulsing in black.

The Doctor could see both hearts stop.

It was over in an instant, and the bright pulse of white-and-green faded instead into gold. A noise akin to a scream came from Gamma, and bright gold light flared through every seam in the Dalek armor.

Gamma was regenerating. _Tyoden_ was regenerating.

The energy flowed through the tubes attached to his armor and poured into the Dependent like liquid gold. The huge machine wasn't just receiving the energy – it was _pulling_ the energy into itself, demanding more and more like a hungry predator.

Another blast of gold-yellow light burst from the Dalek armor. Gamma was regenerating, over and over again.

The Dependent was coming alive, making a revving sound that seemed to shake the walls of the cavern. The yellow regeneration energy within it spun rapidly around, making the entire machine tremble.

One final flare of regeneration energy burst from Gamma, and the Dalek shell went dark.

Everything seemed to fade away all at once.

The noise, the light – everything seemed to now be contained within the Dependent, which hummed and purred into life. The Daleks, lined up in the neat half-circle, waited to receive their portion of the regeneration energy.

And the Doctor was numb.

He stumbled forward, almost automatically, toward Gamma. He hadn't even noticed that the Shezniks had released him. His hands fell onto the Dalek's casing, still warm from the blast, and he looked into Gamma's optic.

The worst thing was that Gamma was all _dark_. The bright blue of his optic had faded to a cold, dark grey. The light of both earpieces was gone, never to light up with his voice again.

During the regeneration, the four plates of the armor had cracked open partway, half-revealing and half-masking three smoking shapes within. The two hearts nestled below the Gallifreyan brain lay still, so still.

Gamma was dead.

And the Dependent was alive, ready to turn over Gamma's regeneration energy to a race of invincible Daleks.

* * *

 **A/N: Hello readers! I... uh... yeah. I killed Gamma. Whoops. Thank you for reading! Reviewers, I love ya. Let me know if you liked this chapter!**

 **Translations:**

 ** _C'est la vie:_ That is life.**

 ** _La vie comme d'habitude_ : Life as usual.**


	19. The Heart(s) of a Dalek

**Chapter: Eighteenth**

 **The Heart(s) of a Dalek**

* * *

 _It is happening._

Zeta watched, through its cracked optic, as the Dependent came alive. Inside the machinery the regeneration energy spun rapidly around and around, preparing to disperse to the waiting Daleks.

This was another one of those rare moments when Zeta allowed _feeling_ to flood through it. This feeling. . . it was beyond mere happiness. Beyond simple joy.

This was _exultation_.

Project Independence had taken years. _Years_. And after all the planning, making careful alliances with the Shezniks, capturing the human from Saturn, building the Dependent, building the Bermuda base, capturing the Doctor's companion from the parallel world – all of it was it was now culminating to this.

The Greek subset of war Daleks _reborn_. A new race equipped with regeneration. Not immortal, exactly, but close. Close enough so that their armor, beaten and broken, would be restored to its proper glory.

In the slim periphery of Zeta's cracked optic, the Dalek could see movement. It was the Doctor, and he was walking toward the corpse of the Time Lord parasite.

Zeta dismissed the information. The Doctor, the mutinous Shezniks, the human female – none of them were relevant. Even the Time Lord parasite inside Gamma's armor was irrelevant now.

With regeneration energy already working inside the Dependent, little else mattered. The Doctor was alive, but the objective hadn't been to kill him. The objective had been to gain regeneration, no matter what form that took.

Zeta would never have expected the Time Lord parasite to _willingly_ give its life in place of the Doctor's. The sacrifice had been unnecessary, reckless; there was no logic to it.

The Time Lord parasite had been considered for the procedure, of course. It was only logical to conclude that the Time Lord's regeneration capability would involve the hearts and brain. The Daleks didn't have a complete Gallifreyan body, but they had pieces that would probably work.

But Zeta didn't work off _probably_. Possibilities were not certainties. The parasite was an unknown, and unknowns were messy. Too many variables involved.

The Doctor, on the other hand, _was_ certain – as measurable and repeatable as proving gravity. He had died many, many times before. And the Daleks could have easily made him do it again.

But plans changed, and the ends always justified the means.

Zeta waited.

 _Something is wrong._

The Dependent shouldn't have taken this long. Zeta knew the schematics of this machine inside and out, and the regenerations should have reached his squadron six rels ago.

Suddenly, Zeta became aware of another sound, and it looked down to see what was happening.

The Doctor had moved away from the platform where the Gamma's armor still stood standing.

He was striding around the room again.

And he was laughing.

* * *

It had taken the Doctor a moment. A few of them, actually, a few good long moments, but he had figured it out.

He didn't know anything about the Dependent – how it was supposed to work, how long it was supposed to take, or how it was supposed to sound.

But he _did_ know a thing or two about broken machines (he had the TARDIS to thank for that), and the sound was unmistakable.

The Dependent matched it perfectly.

The machinery inside the glass shell sounded about as pretty as a rusty toaster being dragged along a gravel road, and the amount of heat it was emitting was warming up the whole cavern.

Standing beside Gamma's armor, looking up at the Dependent, the Doctor stood still and let his mind race. Possibilities flashed in his mind, and he dismissed them all until one final thought popped into his brain.

 _No. . . yes? No, that couldn't be right. Not unless. . . ._

He turned to look at Rose.

She met his eyes and gave a nod, and the final piece clicked into place.

"Hah!" the Doctor said, feeling giddy smile come over his face. " _Hah_!" He threw his head back and started laughing.

"THE DOC-TOR WILL EX-PLAIN!" a Dalek voice shrieked, sounding almost hysterical.

The Doctor spun around, trench coat flying. Zeta was looking directly at him, and the Dalek was trembling with anger.

"Would you like me to tell you?" the Doctor asked, feeling cockiness bubble up from his realization. "Would you like me to tell you just how grandly you've mucked this all up?"

Twenty Dalek optics turned to him.

The Doctor always liked this part. This was the part when he could be as smug and cocky as he liked, because he knew everything that the other side didn't. Everything was okay, because he already knew he had won.

"Remember the first time you tried to do this?" the Doctor asked. "Remember how you utterly and completely failed?" He waited, but Zeta didn't respond. "Rose did that. Played about with your little machine and made it reject my regeneration."

"The De-pend-ent was re-stored," Omicron growled from its platform.

"Well, sure, you fixed the _first_ problem," the Doctor said. "You didn't know she changed something else."

He raised his eyebrows, enjoying the sudden silence his words had created.

"All the regenerations for your brand-new army were supposed to be flowing there, if I'm not mistaken." The Doctor gestured to the the network of metal pipes branching from the Dependent to each Dalek's individual platform. "Well, Rose knew that, so she very cleverly closed that pipe off. Want to know what else she did?"

The twenty optics were silent, waiting.

"She opened up a little hole at the top," the Doctor said simply. He raised his eyebrows. "And now all that life you just took away from Gamma is pouring straight up, straight into the skin of the earth."

"Ex-ter-mi-nate her," Omicron said slowly.

The Doctor sighed. "Oh, dull," he muttered. "Knew your mind would jump to that. _Think_! Come on, you Daleks are supposed to be clever!"

He pointed at the Dependent. "That machine was made to spread the regeneration around a small area. One bitty little piping system. The entire earth is quite an area to fill, though, and your machine isn't liking this massive workload. You're a clever boy, Zeta. What d'you think is going to happen?"

Silently, Zeta raised its eyestalk to look at the Dependent.

"Yeah, that's right." The Doctor raised his eyebrows. " _Boom_."

A shrieking noise came from the Dependent, as if proving his point, and the ground gave a dangerous tremble.

The Doctor gave all the Daleks a bright smile. "Bye, then!"

He spun around, and realized that Rose had been watching him with a slight smile on her face.

"You worked it out," she whispered quietly. "Clever you."

"Clever _you_!" The Doctor leapt forward, took Rose's head in his hands, and kissed her firmly on the forehead. "Brave Gamma. And me?" He gave a wide grin. "I'm the one who got to explain it straight to the Dalek's faces. Call it a team effort." He laced his fingers through Rose's and gripped her hand tightly. "But we've gotta scoot, and I mean _really_ scoot. We've only got about fifty more seconds before the Dependent blows itself up. Come on!"

They started running for the exit. The Doctor saw the Shezniks out of the corner of his eye, and he gestured for them to follow. "Oi, you! Shezniks! You too, come on!"

The Shezniks didn't move.

The Doctor faltered in his sprint and turned around. "Big machine, about to explode? Time to _go_?" he prompted, the urgency clear in his voice.

The creatures exchanged glances. "Time Lord," one hissed, "you go. Get the human to s-s-safety."

The Doctor frowned. "Where will you be?"

"The Daleks-s-s will try to escape this-s-s room," the Sheznik said softly. "We will s-s-stop them."

"Doesn't matter. Nothing here except the TARDIS is going to survive that blast anyway," the Doctor said, shaking his head. " _Come with. me_."

The Sheznik looked Doctor straight in the face, and he realized its slitted eyes were filled with tears.

"Then we will s-s-s-stay," it hissed, "if only to watch the Daleks-s-s _burn_."

The Doctor finally understood – the Shezniks weren't planning on coming out of this alive. Melva had been twisted and half insane and working for the Daleks, sure, but at the end of the day, she was a mum. She was the _Shezniks_ ' mum, and they were lost without her. "Revenge is pointless," he said quietly, intensely, raising his eyebrows. "Revenge isn't worth dying for."

A glittering tear slid down the Sheznik's scaly cheek. "You are running out of time, Time Lord," it hissed in a whisper. "Go."

Rose squeezed his hand. "Doctor," she murmured. "Come on."

Reluctantly, the Doctor turned and followed after her. As they left the cavern, the Shezniks collectively turned their attention to the gathered Daleks. The brood began closing in on their former allies, tails rasping ominously against the dry ground.

The Doctor and Rose ran for their lives. They ran out of the cavern and through the winding corridors until they came upon the TARDIS. The Daleks had placed it in a nearby alcove, and they were almost upon it when the Doctor suddenly cried out and skidded to a stop just before the TARDIS doors.

"Oh, stupid! Stupid Doctor!" he groaned, shoving a hand through his spiky hair.

Rose looked over at him through wide eyes. "What? What's wrong?"

"Taryn," the Doctor said in response. "Last I saw her, she was still in the – you've met Taryn, right?" he asked suddenly, cutting himself off. "Biologist, about yay-high, brown hair?"

Rose was nodding. "Doctor – I've met her, yeah – listen, she's still downstairs, in the prisons. She was down there with us when the Shezniks let us all out, but she stayed behind. There were all these people down there – pirates, or something, I dunno."

"The crew of the Cockatrice," the Doctor realized with surprise. "Brilliant! They're still alive then." He frowned. "Why'd Taryn stay?"

Rose took a breath. "Some of them were hurt," she said carefully. "Some pretty bad –bruises, broken bones, stuff like that. Taryn said she could help them."

"Good girl, Taryn!" the Doctor said, starting to smile again. "Are you _sure_ she's still down there? Positively, absolutely?"

"Cross my heart, why?"

"If they all stay down in the prisons, they'll be safe." The Doctor nodded in the general direction of where they had just come from. "That blast is only going upwards, not downwards. Right-o, hop in!"

Rose leapt into the TARDIS, and the Doctor followed close behind. The door slammed automatically after him as the first explosion ripped through the Bermuda base.

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks for reading! Wow, I'm so glad you all liked the last chapter! I was very reluctant to kill Gamma off (as I've grown rather fond of him myself), but I was so happy that his death at least made my readers feel something.**

 **Shout-out to NovakCat, my beta reader, for drawing fanart for this story! Thanks for the art, Novak!** ** **:D You can find the gif on her DeviantArt. It's titled 'You Are Not Alone'.****

 **Review answers:**

 **MossStories:** Thanks for your review! Sorry about killing Gamma. I know you liked him. x)

 **Lil'Sparrow7:** Wow, that's a huge compliment! I'm so glad the story exceeded your expectations. (In a good way, too – glad it wasn't the other way around!)

 **Guest** : Tyoden G – I love it! That's Gamma's unofficial full name.

 **roytrommely261:** Good catch! I fixed the sentence, so it shouldn't sound quite so awkward now. X) Thank you for your kind words!


	20. What You Die For

**Chapter: Nineteenth**

 **What You Die For**

* * *

The TARDIS trembled as each explosion sounded outside. The Doctor crouched by the door, one ear pressed to the wood as if listening.

"Doctor?" Rose sounded uncertain. "We going or not?"

"Hm?" The Doctor looked up at her, his tongue touching the roof of his mouth in concentration. Noticing her expression, he straightened up. "We're not done yet," he said lightly, walking forward. "Almost there, but not quite. Soon as that explosion clears itself up, I'm going back out there. And I'm going to need your help."

Rose frowned, puzzled. "What do we need to –"

"Oh, hold on –!" The Doctor suddenly held up a finger and tilted his head to one side, listening. "Hear that?" he asked. A little grin spread over his face. "They've stopped. The explosions have stopped."

"And we're going back out?"

"Just one more thing," he promised. He squeezed her shoulder and reached for the TARDIS door handle. "Just one more thing, and then you can go home."

* * *

Rose shivered and hugged closer to the Doctor's form as they walked through what remained of the Dalek base.

There was debris everywhere – it was hard to tell what was debris and what was just dust lying on top. Smoke hung heavy in the air.

The Doctor walked slowly through the rubble, hands in his pockets, his trainers leaving streaks in the dust.

They were making their way back to the main cavern. The opening yawned in the hallway up ahead, a large black hole full of dust and smoke. The sound of their footsteps turned into echoes as they stepped inside.

A heavy rasp echoed around the cavern, breaking the silence.

Rose, unusually skittish, jumped in fear. "What was that?"

"One last fight to be fought," the Doctor murmured in reply, his head turned to the right.

A few feet in front of the smoldering remains of the Dependent, something shifted in the dust.

The Doctor strode over to the moving mound and knelt into the dust beside it.

Tentacles moved feebly, and the charcoal-coated shape split open to reveal a large, pale orange eye. The surface of the eye had boiled in the heat of the explosion, and clear fluid wept from the burn.

The Doctor was the first to speak. "Hello, Zeta."

The eye lolled in its collapsing socket, lazily focusing on the Doctor's face. Something resembling a lung system heaved in the Kaled's side, inflating and deflating like a balloon. "Doc. Tor. . . ."

"You're about to die." The Doctor looked over its pathetic form. "You were ripped apart by that explosion. You're not going to last long."

Zeta's eyelid drifted shut. "In-for-ma-tion. . . un-nec-es-sar-y," it ground out painfully.

The Doctor shook his head slowly from side to side, never taking his eyes off the Kaled. "And that was where you went wrong, Zeta," he said. "You had one – just one, I'll give you that – fatal mistake this whole time. For all your methodical thinking and careful little algorithms, you forgot to factor in one thing. The one, sticky, impossible human emotion. _Love_."

Zeta gave a long, pained hissing noise, but the Doctor continued anyway.

"Love. Brilliant concept. That's what made Rose destroy your precious Dependent, what made the Shezniks turn on you lot." The Doctor nodded and squinted ahead at the blackened wall. "That's why Gamma sacrificed himself. He sacrificed himself for me. Sacrifice, that's the boldest form of love." He glanced down at the Kaled. "Oh, but I wouldn't expect you to fathom all that," he said, glancing away. "You're a Dalek. You're _way_ above all that. Rubbishy human philosophy, right?"

With great effort, the Kaled heaved itself a few inches across the floor. "I – would – rath-er – die." It gave a pained gurgle. "Than feel il-log-i-cal. . . hu-man. . . emotion. . . ."

The Doctor didn't say anything for a long time. He watched as this pathetic squid-creature writhed about in the ashes of its dead squadron – friendless, defenseless, dying because of treachery.

"That's it, then," he said, and stood without another word.

As the Doctor's footsteps drummed on the ground and faded away, Zeta looked up once again at the shattered shell of the Dependent.

It would be the last thing the Dalek would ever see as it breathed its last breath.

Rose stood a few yards away, rubbing her upper arms as if she were chilly. She looked up as the Doctor returned. "Is it. . . is he. . . ?"

"Gone," he said simply. "Just gone."

Rose nodded, searching his face. "That it, then?" she asked. "Is that what you had to do?"

"No," the Doctor said, shaking his head once. "Not yet. Come on."

Grasping her hand, he led Rose over to what remained of the Independent in its little alcove.

All things considered, the glasslike cage had fared pretty well in the explosion. Being made of some sort of tempered Dalek glass, the only damage it had suffered appeared to have come from a boulder that had fallen from the ceiling. The rock had hit the top of the glass at an angle, leaving long, spiderwebbing cracks across the entire face.

Dim yellow lights still flickered inconsistently around the base, providing them with just enough light to see where they were going.

The Doctor paused before the machine, and Rose sidled up reluctantly beside him. Giving her hand a light, reassuring squeeze, he broke away and scaled the platform.

"Sorry, Rose, but I'm going to need you to send one last message to Gamma and me." At the top, he spun around and offered his hand to help her up.

Rose hesitated. "You sure about this?"

"Don't worry, I'll help," the Doctor said encouragingly.

Rose took his hand and scrambled up to the platform. "Okay then, what do you want me to send?" She took the seat.

"I'm going to give it to you," he said. He tapped her head. "Mind-meld. Simple stuff. My mind to yours. All I need you to do is, oh, sort of send it through. Like – oh!" He snapped his fingers. "Like you're forwarding an e-mail."

"Okay." Rose nodded and turned around, pressing both palms to the inside of the curved glass. "Ready."

The Doctor placed both hands on both sides of her head and closed his eyes in concentration.

Rose closed her eyes as well. A melodious, strangely wordless message poured into her head like warm water. She couldn't translate or read any of the words exactly, but she knew this was the Doctor's message. She sent the feeling down through her arms to her palms, and she could feel the strange energy pouring out from her fingertips.

Coordinates entered her mind, and she sent the message, feeling the Independent shudder slightly as she did so.

She opened her eyes and blinked, reading the message she had just transcribed.

"Gallifreyan," she said in surprise.

The Doctor crossed his arms and leaned against the side of the Independent. "That's right," he murmured.

Rose twisted around in her seat. "Go on, then. What's it say?"

He tilted his chin up, indicating the circular text. "It's a message to me. The younger-ish me, back in the TARDIS, when Gamma and I first met. It's a set of coordinates, leading straight to Taryn's Ixxa base. Back where this whole mess started."

"Why Gallifreyan?"

A hint of a smug smile came tugged at the Doctor's lips. " _Well_ ," he started dramatically, glancing away. "Besides Gamma, I was the only one who knew Gallifreyan. Plus, I'm the only one who could have given it to you through a mind-meld." He sucked in a breath. "But the only way I could send that message, the same message I had already received in the past, was through you and this machine."

"Right." Rose tried to follow. "But you hadn't yet, so. . . ."

"So that's how I knew I would survive." The Doctor nodded. He sniffed once and looked away. "Come on," he said. "Let's get back to the TARDIS. Get out of here."

* * *

"You go ahead and sit-awn down, muh lady," the Doctor drawled in his best Elvis impression, gesturing to the yellow chair of the TARDIS. "I've got a few calls to make!"

He spun around the shining console and tapped rapid-fire at the buttons, flipping some levers. The TARDIS began groaning, the center column pumping up and down as the Doctor continued going around the console.

"First and foremost, a note to all the ocean ports closest to the Bermuda Triangle," the Doctor said, starting to type quickly as he paraphrased aloud. "There's people! People deep and down below needing rescue. Send, oh, five or six rescue ships – maybe a photographer, if you want to make the news. . . ."

"Doctor?" Rose said, her voice sounding strained.

When the Doctor glanced over at her, she was holding her throat, grimacing at the effort to speak.

"Doctor, I don't feel so –"

"Wait wait wait, if you could just hold that thought –" The Doctor darted over to Rose and helped her to her feet by looping her arm over his shoulders.

"I'd just like you to relax for a moment, come on over here, and just –" the Doctor opened up both doors of the TARDIS, " _look_."

Rose took in a deep breath.

Spiraling far below them, glittering in green and shiny blue, a planet spun. A soft yellow aura surrounded it.

"Where are we?" Rose whispered.

The Doctor looked at her with a smile. "Well, Rose Tyler, the year is thirty-twelve, a fine day in early April, we've got the sun rising and setting at the same time, and _that_ " – he nodded to the planet below – " _that_ is planet Earth."

Rose looked at him, her brown eyes wide. "Seriously?" she said. Slowly her head shook. "But. . . it's. . . _amazing_. Earth never looked like that."

"It's what you did to the Dependent," the Doctor said. "When Gamma died, pure regenerative energy got pumped straight up into the skin of the earth. All those explosions sounded pretty bad from downstairs, but this is what's happening on the surface. Gamma is regenerating, right now, along with the entire planet."

Rose couldn't pull her eyes away. "Doctor, it's beautiful."

"That's Gamma." The Doctor put his hands in his pockets and tilted his head, admiring the view.

The planet spun slowly – glittering, breathing, healing with every passing second. Gamma had escaped from a dying, war-ravaged planet, but he had given his life to breathe beauty back into another planet. He would live on until the end of the world. . . this world, anyway.

"Doctor, it's great, but–" Rose choked on the words and gave another cough, covering her mouth with her hand. When she pulled her hand away, it was covered in shiny, itchy sand particles. As she stared in horror at her hand, she realized her fingers were beginning to glow. "Doctor?"

"Oh, yep! Sorry, should have warned you about that. I just wanted to show you this first." The Doctor took her hands and gave a wide, admiring grin. "Rose Tyler. Teleported to one dimension. Dragged all the way back here. Literally e-mailing throughout time and space. Oh, just the usual."

"Doctor, what's _happening_ to me?" The glow was traveling up her arms.

His smile faded, and he looked into her wide, scared eyes with a gentle expression. "Your ticket home," he said quietly. "The message you sent was a paradox. One final paradox your body can't deal with. You know how paradoxes mess with your _mind_ , imagine the load they do to your physical body.

"Your body is trying to fix itself," he continued. "All your cells are remembering back to when they were normal, before anything happened. That time just happens to be before Melva took you from the parallel world. Using the last little bit of the Time Vortex particles still left in you, your own body is teleporting itself back home."

"Could I stay?" Rose's voice squeaked as she tried to hold back tears. "Could I stop it – stay with you?"

"You can't," the Doctor said gently. "Already it's unusual that your body's held out this long." He smiled, a smile full of genuine fondness. "Good thing you're a good bit more resilient than the average, run-of-the-mill human." He brushed her hair away from her tear-filled eyes. "My Bad Wolf."

Rose let out her breath, closing her eyes as she allowed the tears to slip down her cheeks.

"Oh, and one more thing, before you go. I believe there's something I forgot to tell you last time you left. Rose Tyler –" The Doctor leaned into her ear and whispered three words.

Choking back a sob, Rose turned her head, held his face, and kissed him. He kissed her back, trying to hold back some tears himself.

His hands traveled up to hold her face, cupping her head in his palms. Even as he did so, he could feel her existence slipping away.

There was a sound of sand.

The Doctor opened his eyes and looked down at his hands. Golden dust filtered through his fingers, slipping away into the darkness of space.

Time Vortex residue.

The ashes of what remained of Rose's existence. In this dimension, anyway – she would be safe now, back at home. Her new home.

The Doctor let the remaining dust fall, glittering slowly down in the gravitational pull of the Earth, and put both hands in his pockets.

His fingers brushed against something warm and metal. Taking a deep breath, the Doctor grabbed it and pulled it out of his pocket.

It was Gamma's Greek symbol, Γ, that had been soldered to his armor.

The Dalek armor had softened in the heat of the regeneration fire. When the Doctor had stood beside Gamma, the hot symbol had practically fallen into his hand.

It still felt warm now. He rubbed his thumb over the smooth metal.

He brought the symbol to his chest and pressed it close to his hearts, the leftover memories of everything he had lost.

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing! This is the final chapter, and I hope you all enjoyed it.** **The epilogue will be posted tomorrow to finish the story completely.**

 **Review answers:**

 **NovakCat:** No problem, dude! You've been an awesome (and very patient!) beta. Thanks for reviewing. ^-^

 **Guest:** Ooh, that would have been really neat. Thanks for the kind words!

 **NK Hexaflexagons Guest:** All fixed!


	21. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

* * *

ONE MONTH LATER

(TARDIS-time)

"Now then!" the Doctor said brightly, closing the doors behind him with his foot. "Hello again, old girl."

The TARDIS purred wordlessly in reply.

The Doctor hopped up to the console of the TARDIS, shrugging off his trench coat and tossing it over a branch of coral in one smooth move.

"Unfriendly things, Zorrins," he said aloud, frowning as he rubbed his left shoulder. "Very sort of – _pokey_. They like their swords a bit too much, I think."

The Doctor found he was talking to himself a lot these days. The TARDIS didn't talk as much as he did, leaving it up to him to fill the empty space.

"So where to now, ey?" He idly flipped a switch and spun a dial with his thumb. "Where you do want to go?"

As usual, the TARDIS didn't respond.

Giving a deep sigh, the Doctor began switching levers and setting coordinates. The center column dutifully began pumping up and down.

The monitor gave a cheerful beep.

Curious, the Doctor grabbed the screen and pulled it around to face him. The TARDIS only gave him suggestions of suspicious happenings when it thought he needed it.

As he read the text that came up on the screen, he raised an eyebrow.

 _Adipose Industries_. The words were thin and silver, gleaming within a pill-shaped enclosure. Reading the slogan, the Doctor touched his tongue to the roof of his mouth in interest and read quietly aloud, "'And the fat just walks away.'"

He sniffed once.

Slowly, a large grin spread across his face. This was _definitely_ better than helping to settle peace treaties. His visit to Saturn 12 could wait.

"Allons-y!" he said brightly, flipping a switch. Immediately the TARDIS changed course, its center column seemingly pumping up and down with more fervor.

The TARDIS settled with a bump as they landed. The Doctor strode over to the doors and scooped up his coat, sliding it onto his shoulders. The material hadn't even had a chance to cool off from his body heat yet.

The wooden door of the TARDIS clattered shut behind him as he stepped out, off on another adventure.

On the inside of the right-hand door, soldered to the center of the telephone box, was a small metal symbol, looking like an inverted L.

Γ.

Gamma.

It glittered there every minute of every hour of every day, as a reminder.

 _You are not alone._

* * *

 **A/N: I CANNOT BELIEVE IT'S FINALLY DONE. :D A million thank-yous to all the readers, followers, favoriters, and reviewers of this story. You all kept me going, encouraged me along the way without even knowing it, and altogether made this whole experience truly, truly fun. :D**

 **I will not be writing a sequel to this story.**

 **Review answers:**

 **MossStories:** Let me tell you, your review absolutely made my day. Given the daunting number of DW fanfictions on this site, that is a huge compliment! Thank you so much!

 **moglefrog:** Thank you, thank you, thank you! I'm really happy to hear that! I knew I had a lot of silent readers out there, and I love knowing that they were still enjoying the story as it was being posted. :)


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